Gratitude
by alternaurora
Summary: Newly-human Castiel is struggling to cope and adapt with his new life as Thanksgiving approaches. Sam thinks, what better way to help the fallen angel cheer up and embrace humanity than to keep a journal of moments and things that he is grateful for? A month in the life of Team Free Will, told from the eyes of the Winchesters and the words of their fallen angel.
1. Grocery Shopping

I started uploading this to AO3 last week (more of my work is there, as I don't know how strict FFNet is about their blahblah no explicit content thing) and finally remembered to bring it here. Sorry for the wait!

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><p>Dean wasn't allowed to go grocery shopping. Not if Sam could help it.<p>

His older brother's idea of restocking their stash of foodstuffs included and was sadly limited to whatever was on sale at the Gas 'N Sip whenever he decided to use cash to refuel the Impala and had to actually step foot inside the store. Those occasions usually found Dean coming back to the bunker with two for three-dollar Entenmann's, Corn Flakes that were dangerously approaching the expiration date, and hideously overpriced milk and orange juice.

It was usually during either the gas-ups, or when he went on a beer run and decided that snacks were in order.

There were a few times during the early days of their stay in the bunker that Sam had invited Dean along to the actual grocery store in town. It was a humble little establishment— faded redbrick facade, ratty old horizontal blinds blocking windows that were already smattered with local tutoring ads and the occasional 'For Rent' posting whenever one of the town's three hundred and sixty-four residents decided to uproot and get out while they still could.

After all, Lebanon was quite literally the middle of goddamn nowhere.

Sam knew they could drive a few towns over and eventually hit a Wal-Mart. Hell, if he climbed onto the roof of the bunker they could probably spot one. There was something about keeping local, though, that made Sam feel better about it. Where better to make their purchases than at a Mom and Pop shop where every penny actually made a difference?

Dean's appearances on the new Men of Letters food shopping outings were, less than tragically, short lived. Sam could only deal with '_No Dean, Funyuns don't count as vegetables_' and '_What the hell is a rutabaga? God, Sammy, it's an honest question. No need to be so rude-abaga_,' before he wanted to pummel his brother upside the head with a sack of Yukon Golds.

Although sometimes Sam wanted to flat out refuse Dean's offer to help with the shopping, he decided to take the non-confrontational and wonderfully passive-aggressive high road instead. Early mornings were typically reserved for head-clearing, endorphin-rushing jogs through the woods around the bunker, but he couldn't do it every day. Not that he didn't want to, because there was something cathartic and cleansing about running himself ragged and sweat-drenched, but bodies in motion don't always stay in motion— they eventually flop over and demand rest. So, once or twice a week whenever the kitchen was looking bare and Sam was giving his long legs a break, lest he invite the wrath of a shin splint, he rolled out one of the old classics from the garage and cruised on into town.

Because although Dean was far from being a morning person, if one purr of his baby's engine somehow made it down to his room, he'd wake and there'd be hell to pay.

Sam invited Cas along every now and then. He always knew that his offer would be politely declined, but it was better than letting the guy feel unwelcome. Cas was enough of a wreck at that time anyway, only a few weeks after he'd had his grace cut from his throat. The fallen angel had enough on his plate anyway. Between grasping the basics of humanity and wrestling with his guilt over being tricked into helping slam the pearly gates shut, Sam understood. Or at least he liked to think he did.

Rolling the full shopping cart to the lone checkout counter proved to be a trying task. The thing had a stupid wheel that kept swiveling in all the wrong directions, causing him to swerve in slow motion with every frustrated nudge he gave it. Today was a record— he only bumped into one display, and the Good Humor ice cream cooler already had enough cart-scuffs in it's side so Sam couldn't even bother to feel embarrassed.

He began unloading his purchase onto the counter and smiled back at the familiar proprietress across from him.

"Good morning, Mrs. Hovanek."

"Same to you, Mr. Martin."

So maybe Sam was on a Coldplay kick last time he fudged himself an identity. Dean wasn't thrilled about it since they were still trying to hold up the whole 'brothers' thing with the locals they did inevitably have to run into, but then Sam had reminded him about a certain member of the Rat Pack and King of Cool and he was totally on board.

"Beat the rush today, I see," the middle-aged woman cooed with all the warmth and charm one would expect from a sweet lady running the only legitimate grocery store in town.

Small-talk about the changing weather and the next day's spooky holiday was interspersed with '_beep beep_'s and '_clackclackclack_'s as the woman scanned packages and keyed in produce codes. Sam handed over a few crisp twenty dollar bills and took his change before hoisting the morning's haul back into the twitchy cart.

"Oh!" Mrs. Hovanek jumped with forgotten realization, her curled hair bobbing, reading glasses slipping ever so slightly down her wide nose. "Before you go—"

She handed a small flier to Sam. It was hand-cut, evidently printed four to a page and designed with only a basic knowledge of clip-art and word formatting.

"My husband told me how all the big stores give their loyal customers free turkeys for Thanksgiving, so we're doing it this year too! It won't be a Butterball or anything fancy, but it's the least we can do to give back to the community. You and your brother come down, we'll be sure to save a big one for you boys, okay?"

The woman's cheeks were pink and dimpled with a proud, cheerful smile. Sam grinned back at her and slipped the paper into one of his generic plastic bags that read '_Thank You For Shopping With Us!_'

"That's great," Sam said genuinely. "We'll definitely be here."

Polite goodbyes were exchanged and he wheeled the crippled metal death trap out to the old Chevelle he'd opted for for today's ride.

He piled the shopping bags into the trunk, making sure that Dean's bagel chips and honey barbecue Herr's were _not_ at the bottom this time— that was one bitchfest of Dean's that Sam would prefer not to relive. Demons, angels, witches— yeah, whatever. But hand the older Winchester a bowl of crumbs, may God have mercy on your soul.

They had a free turkey to look forward to in a few weeks, though, which was kind of awesome. Not that the whole 'free' thing had anything to do with it, because none if it was their own money anyway, but still. Their childhood Thanksgivings were always a huge letdown, courtesy of John Winchester, parent of the year. And now, ever since their stint in Heaven a few years back, Dean refused to even discuss the subject. They didn't even get their traditional bucket of extra crispy anymore.

Perhaps the turkey from the market would be an excuse to start a new tradition. As much as it made his nerves stand on end to admit it, yeah, the bunker was starting to feel like home. 'Home' was an uncomfortable word for Sam, and even thinking it made him anxious sometimes, but now that it wasn't just him and Dean anymore, it was different. Even if Cas was having a rough go of it at the moment, having the guy around for good this time added something new to the picture. It felt almost like family.

Maybe a real Thanksgiving would do everybody some good. All he had to do was convince Dean to give it a chance.

—

Dean looked up from his laptop screen as Sam trudged into the kitchen with four or five bags on each arm.

Two trips was for the weak.

"Heya, Sammy."

"A little help here?" Sam asked, setting all the bags down on the tile floor with a rustle of plastic and a collective thud. His forearms came away striped with red indented lines. He liked to think he was being efficient, but really, he just didn't want to keep going back and forth from the garage to the kitchen over and over again.

"You got it." Dean flicked the laptop shut and pushed off on his knees, standing and making his way over to the sea of brown bags. He crouched in the middle of it all and began unbagging everything while Sam gradually put everything away into cabinets and various compartments in their new combination freezer/refrigerator.

"What's got you up so early, man?" Sam asked, stuffing boxes of cereal into the cabinet over the sink. "It's only eight. You usually don't show your face this early unless we're working."

"Yeah, well, maybe I _am_ working." Dean said vaguely, tossing a couple boxes of wheat pasta at his brother.

Sam slid the pasta next to the cereal in their giant cupboard o' carbs. "Digging for a case? I thought you wanted a calm Halloween this year."

"Oh we _will_ have Halloween. We are going to park our asses tomorrow and watch horror movies all night and eat peanut butter cups until we hurl." Dean found his bag of snacks and grinned. "Thanks, dude." He got up and put them away himself.

Sam laughed. "Just peanut butter cups?"

"Mostly." Dean sank back down into the mess of bags and began handing the more temperature sensitive items to Sam, who stood waiting at the fridge.

"So," Sam pressed, "what are you working on?"

Dean frowned. "Research."

"For?"

"Dude, you are way too interested in this."

Sam huffed and set to reorganizing the produce drawer, newer items on the bottom, older ones on top.

Dean dug into the last shopping bag and emerged with two containers of coffee and a grin on his face. "Sweet."

"You and Cas seemed to like the hazelnut one, so I got two," Sam said. "Hope that's alright."

Dean wasted no time in popping up to set up the coffee maker with a few heaping scoops of nutty goodness in the filter. While the machine began to gurgle, he set about gathering up the empty bags from the floor, squashing them all together into one bag. He hesitated when one squish sounded much more crackly than the others.

"What the—"

Dean pulled the crumpled flier from the bag and examined it. Sam shut the fridge to find him smirking at the little advertisement.

"What do you think?" Sam asked.

"I'm thinking someone needs to teach that lady how to use Photoshop."

"Not what I meant and you know it."

"Free turkey?" Dean asked, stuffing the plastic bags into the garbage can and sitting back down at the table. He tossed the flier into the center of it. "Turkey's cool with me if you know how to cook it. I sure don't."

"I think we can figure it out." Sam sat down across the kitchen table from him. "Really, Dean, how about it? Why don't we do Thanksgiving this year? I'm sure Charlie would come. We can make a big meal, some homemade pies. It might even be good for Cas, man."

Dean looked up with a bluntness in his eyes that told Sam that he'd hit the crux of the problem.

"Do you really think that? You think subjecting him to a holiday where you're supposed to talk about shit you're thankful for is going to cheer up a guy who just lost fucking _everything_?"

Sam frowned. "It's worth a try, don't you think?"

Dean angrily pushed back from the table to get up and pour himself a mug of coffee, black. He blew on it and took a tentative sip before settling back into his chair.

"It might help," Dean said. "Or it might make it worse. That's what I was looking up. Depression stuff, you know? Trying to see if there's anything we can do to help."

Sam's face softened. "He doesn't have depression, Dean. He's just grieving and, well, _lost_."

"I know." Dean took a long sip from his mug. "I never told you this, Sammy, but Cas was… he was bordering on suicidal when he got back from Purgatory."

The word slammed into the younger brother's chest with a force that stole the breath from him. He widened his eyes at Dean.

"Yeah,' Dean said. He traced his thumb along the rim of his mug and stared down into the black liquid. "Now with all this… this human thing, and the Fall. It scares me. I don't want to take any chances, you know? I don't know what I would do if he—"

The sound of bare feet shuffling on hard floor echoed down the hall. Dean looked up and met Sam's raised eyebrow with a curious lift of his own. He turned his head to see Cas peer hesitantly around the door frame.

"Morning, Cas," Dean said with a smile.

Cas' tired eyes widened and he stepped more fully into the doorway. He was dressed in a pair of old ratty sweatpants Dean had given him when he'd first arrived in the bunker. They'd since gotten Cas some clothes of his own, but for some reason he seemed partial to Dean's worn-in hand me downs. The one thing they'd bought him that he'd taken a real liking to was the big fluffy dark green cotton bath robe he was wearing, because Dean had figured if the guy was going to rightfully mope around the bunker, he was damn well going to be comfortable doing it.

"I did not mean to interrupt," Cas said, looking abashed. "I'll come back later."

"You're not interrupting anything, buddy," Dean said. He pulled out one of the empty chairs. "Come sit. What's up?"

Cas' eyes darted to the counter, then back to Dean. "I smelled coffee."

"Help yourself," Sam said with a chuckle. "I'm not having any today, so that's all for you two."

Cas padded across the tile to grab his favorite mug from the cupboard (plain black but with a satisfying weight to it) and filled it about three quarters of the way. He pulled open the fridge and studied it blankly.

"There's no milk."

The glare Dean shot Sam could've turned a man to stone.

"You forgot the milk?" Dean asked in a low, accusing voice.

"I'm sorry? I can't remember everything."

"What the hell, you know he doesn't drink it black like we do!"

"It's fine, Dean," Cas said, closing the fridge. "Would you like mine? If not, I can put it back."

Dean got up and took the coffee mug from the fallen angel. He put a comforting hand on his friend's back, rubbing the soft cotton of his robe, and led him to sit down.

"I got this, Cas, just give me a second. Seriously though, Sam, what kind of jackass buys cereal without milk?"

"Me, apparently."

Cas offered Sam an apologetic look, though if he was apologizing for his own reaction or Dean's, Sam couldn't tell.

Dean set the coffee down on the counter and yanked open the freezer. He rummaged around a bit before pulling out a tub of vanilla bean ice cream. A few seconds of digging through drawers found him with scooper in hand, plopping a healthy dollop into the coffee. Dean tossed the scooper into the sink and found a spoon to stir it. The liquid was still hot enough to melt the ice cream, melding it into a creamy tan color with persistent frozen flecks floating about. He put the rest of the container away and brought the mug to Cas before sitting back in his own seat.

"It's not the same, but it might be close enough."

Cas took a slow, cautious sip of his ice cream coffee and set the mug back down on the table. After a long moment, Cas turned to Dean with an attempt at a smile.

"Thank you, Dean," he said. "It's good."

Dean smiled back at him.

The three sat in semi-uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. Cas didn't leave his room often, usually opting for keeping to himself and his own brooding solitude, so their morning coffee ritual had become almost sacred, and Sam had nearly gone and ruined it.

Cas' eyes landed on the flier at the center of the table and he gave it a signature head tilt.

"Turkey?" he asked simply.

Dean's eyes flicked to Sam warningly and then over to the fallen angel.

"Yeah, they're gonna give them out next month for the holiday."

"Have I had turkey yet?" Cas asked.

"I don't think so?" Dean turned to Sam.

"I haven't bought any," Sam said.

Cas turned to Dean. "Is it good?"

"Oh yeah, with gravy and stuffing and all the sides. Phenomenal. We'll have to cook it for you one day."

Cas took a long sip of his coffee. "Do you not want to celebrate Thanksgiving? I was under the impression that it is a very popular American holiday."

The brothers shared another look and Dean sighed.

"We weren't sure if you wanted to, Cas."

Cas frowned. "I understand that the first Thanksgiving was a deceptive precursor to near genocide, and that you might think that is a sensitive subject for me, but if you wish to—"

"That's not what it's about, Cas," Dean rushed to stop the fallen angel before he delved too deeply into those dangerous waters. That was a long time ago now, and they didn't need to rehash those old scars. "Yeah, it happened, but that's not what people celebrate. Thanksgiving's all about family and good food and telling each other the things you're grateful for. That's it."

"And you think I am not grateful for all you two have done for me?"

Sam's mouth tightened and he sighed, trying to sound understanding instead of frustrated. "It's not that, we just—"

"We're worried about you, Cas," Dean finished. "We know you're dealing with some rough shit right now. Having a party to celebrate stuff you're thankful for just seems like it'd be hard on you, you know? With everything you're dealing with."

"I'd like to try," Cas said. "For the both of you, if that is acceptable. You are my family now, and maybe a lesson in gratitude will… ease this experience, perhaps."

"If you're sure?" Dean reached out and squeezed Cas' shoulder.

"I'm sure," Cas offered.

"Maybe just take it a day at a time," Sam said. "Find little things that make you happy. Like just now, with the ice cream."

Cas laughed under his breath and it seemed to light up his entire face, however dimly. "Dean's resourcefulness is certainly something to be thankful for."

Dean grinned. "Ah, it ain't nothin'."

"You should keep a journal, Cas," Sam suggested. "Of things you're thankful for, up until Thanksgiving rolls around. It might really help."

Dean shot Sam a disgusted look. "Dude, lame."

"Just hear me out. Of course you're going to miss being an angel, but writing down good things about being human, good things that happen that you're thankful for happening— might make it not so bad, you know? And when it gets bad, you can look back on the good things and know it'll get better again."

"It does seem like it could be beneficial," Cas said.

Dean laughed. "Cas, you can't seriously be considering this."

The fallen angel turned to Dean with sorrow in his eyes. "Dean, I have been trying to keep this to myself, but it appears in doing so I have still upset you both. I do not wish to worry you. If this writing task is something that can make things easier for us all, I believe I should try it."

Dean couldn't find the fight in himself to deny those sad blue eyes. He finished his coffee and got up from the table, tousling the man's black hair.

"If you think it'll help, I'm all for it, but I draw the line at angel diaries. This project is all you, Sammy."

Dean refilled his coffee and made his way to Sam's room to make use of the television while the opportunity allowed. He left the two of them to sort out the particulars and answer any questions about feelings and journals and other girly crap. He was glad to see a spark of hope in Cas' eyes, but this was totally out of his comfort zone.

Halloween had better be awesome tomorrow, because November was going to be frickin' weird.


	2. Halloween

Sam stepped into the kitchen freshly sweat-coated and winded from a long run, still light-footed on his bouncy colorful Nikes. He made straight for the fridge and pulled out his Brita filter (_his_ because, well, nobody else seemed to use it). He was about to reach into the cupboard for a glass when a note scribbled on half of a ripped sheet of computer paper caught his attention. The corner was tucked neatly under the front of the coffee maker.

_Bitch & Casbutt:_

_Out for tonight's provisions. Be back after lunch._

_Sam, don't touch your laptop. Movies are downloading._

_Cas, if you haven't yet, don't start writing._

_- Dean_

Pouring himself a tall glass of well-deserved water, Sam smirked and figured the guy could've at least signed it 'Jerk.'

—

Dean returned from his trip into town with a case of Blue Moon's Pumpkin Ale, several bags of candy, two gallons of two percent milk, and a pumpkin pie.

Along with something else.

He stashed the milk and as much of the beer he could fit in the fridge, leaving the rest in the case on the table with the candy and pie.

Dean held the last bag at his side, this one a white high quality paper bag with a twine handle which he wound his fingers through in an anxious repetition. He passed Sam's closed door, then his own, finally stopping outside of Cas' room.

Surprisingly, the door wasn't closed today. Just left minimally ajar.

Slow progress was still progress.

Dean knocked on the dark-stained trim of the door frame. There was a rustling of bedding before he heard Cas' voice.

"Yes?"

"It's me. You dressed? Can I come in?"

"Yes, Dean."

He slowly pushed open the door to find Cas sitting cross-legged in bed, a hardback novel open spine-up across his thigh. He was sitting there looking attentively at Dean, seeming every bit the homebody with his sleep-mussed hair and wrinkled t-shirt over yesterday's sweatpants. The black coffee mug was perched within reach on the nearest corner of the nightstand.

Dean gave a nod at the mug and held the bag out of sight behind him. "I got milk if you want me to put on another pot."

"Thank you, but I am fine for the time being. I finished what you left this morning," Cas said, not meeting Dean's eyes and angling his head downward in deference.

Dean didn't like how tiny motions like that showed how little Cas thought of himself nowadays, how self-defeating he'd become, but he didn't want to stir that pot and create more chaos in the man's life. In time, he'd come around. He had to.

"Used the ice cream, didn't you?" Dean made a point of putting some mirth into his voice, of smiling around his words.

"Yes," Cas admitted, lifting his eyes to the hunter. "I'm sorry for depleting your snacks, but it was quite a pleasant substitute."

"Hey man, the ice cream isn't mine. You can go to town on the whole carton if you want. Hell, that's what people do when they're feeling down."

The corner of Cas' lips turned up. "I will keep that in mind."

Dean glanced at the book open across the fallen angel's leg. "I see you're finally reading some of those books you picked out. Anything good?"

Cas picked up the book and ran the attached ribbon down through the pages to hold his place. He slid his fingers down the spine, along the smooth plane of the cover. "Dostoevsky. His subject matter can be quite grim and troubling, but I am finding it to be very engrossing. It is a… a welcome distraction."

Dean approached and waved his hand lazily towards the bed. "Mind if I sit?"

"Certainly," Cas said. He set the book down at his side.

Dean hoisted himself onto the memory foam mattress, nestling his legs cozily into the crumbled blue comforter. He held the chic boutique bag in his lap and crinkled the thick paper as he gave it a squeeze.

"I got you something," Dean said, voice warm, and handed the bag to Cas.

Cas' eyes widened, too startled for such a mundane occurrence, as he hesitantly took the bag in his careful hands.

"It's just a gift, Cas, it won't bite."

Cas held the bag and looked at Dean sadly. "Dean, I— I don't have anything for you."

"So? You don't need to. Not like it's Christmas or anything. It's just something friends do sometimes, buy each other stuff. It's something I wanted you to have. Something I wanted to give you, from me."

Cas' regretful face softened into something humble and timid.

"Go on, open it."

Cas reached into the bag and pulled out a journal. It was bound in ruddy brown leather, so rich it was almost mahogany, so thick and flexible it didn't need any covers. The binding consisted of nothing more than two pieces of the stunning leather. The first one was an almost rectangular piece that folded to compose the spine and both covers, one side cut in a curious concave arc that curved back around to serve as a closing flap. The other was one long string a quarter-inch thick that wove in and out of precisely-punctured holes in the pages, wrapping back out through the covering and looping around and around to serve as a tie.

Cas brushed his fingertips over the soft leather, opened the journal to feel the thickness of the rough yellowed pages. It was so intricate yet so simple. Old fashioned, yet the blank pages shouted out, begging for words to keep in confidence. He placed his palm against the front of it, silent for a long moment.

"This is beautiful, Dean," Cas said, the words coming thick from his throat.

Dean smiled. "You like it?"

"It's perfect. I don't know what to say."

"Then don't say anything. I know I flipped out a bit yesterday when we were all talking about it. But I want you to know that I'm on board with this too, man. It's not just about what you write in there, it's— well, I—" Dean looked down at his hands in his lap. "Journals are normally private. Nobody else is supposed to read them. If keeping things to yourself and that book is what helps you out, then I'm all for it. But if you want to talk, that's cool too. You can talk to me. You got that?"

Cas' eyes began to glisten, but he blinked back any traitorous tears before they could spill. "I got it."

Dean tossed his head in the direction of the bag, now discarded at Cas' side next to the Russian literature.

"There's a couple fountain pens in there too. Thought you might like them more than the ball-point ones."

Cas only nodded in answer.

"You gonna join us later?" he asked, allowing himself to sound hopeful and inviting. "The three of us haven't been together on Halloween in years."

"Five years," Cas specified. "You allowed Samhain's release and your brother called me and my family dicks."

Dean chuckled, pushing off the bed and onto his feet. "Well, it can only get better from there, right? Besides, that was the day you proved to me you _weren't_ a dick, so something good came of it."

"I suppose," Cas said.

Dean made to leave but stopped in the doorway, looking back at the fallen angel curled up in the bed.

"Only if you want to, Cas. If not, we get it. It's cool."

Castiel looked down at the journal in his hands, then back to his friend.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

Dean's lip quirked up involuntarily, a partial smile that was completely pure.

"Yeah."

—

Cas looked down at the bowl of candy corn in his lap with his nose scrunched, eyebrow dubiously lifted.

"I can't tell if I like this or not."

"Nobody can, Cas," Sam said. He flopped over onto his stomach to reach the laptop at the foot of the bed and double-clicked on _Halloween III: Season of the Witch_. He tinkered with a few different commands and the picture transferred over to the larger screen of the television.

"Oddly appropriate title," Dean said around the mouth of a freshly opened beer.

Cas exchanged the bowl of candy corn for the even bigger bowl of assorted individually-wrapped treats that they'd set on the over-turned case of Blue Moon, now three-quarters imbibed, the rest in the coldest part of the fridge. He set the bowl down in front of him. The brothers sat on either side of the fallen angel, almost cozied up on Sam's bed, but with just enough room to call 'personal space.'

Human Cas got drunk a lot quicker than angel Cas did. Human Cas also loved Kit-Kats and Skittles (Tootsie Rolls were an abomination), and decided that Halloween wasn't so awful after all.

"How many of these movies are there?" Cas asked.

"This is number three," Sam said, leaning back into his fluffy husband pillow after snatching his pumpkin beer off the nightstand. "I think there's ten, maybe?"

"Only if you're counting the remakes," Dean pointed out, fingers busy with the zig-zagged orange edge of a Reeses.

"Well, you downloaded them, so I'm counting them."

Cas dropped an empty candy wrapper into the group's growing pile in front of them, picking up his beer from where it rested in the crook of his bent knee.

"I don't think I can stay awake that long, Sam," Cas said dejectedly.

Dean found Cas' inebriated stress too amusing to tell him that no, none of them would. But he was right. Fifteen minutes into the fourth film, Cas began to lean sleepily against Dean's shoulder, still putting away candy and sipping his drink at a diminishing pace. At the halfway mark, the guy was snoring gently, his weight pressing full into the hunter's side. Dean readjusted carefully, scooting back to rest against the pillows piled at the headboard, putting his arm around their sleeping friend and letting him lay against him.

Sam gave his brother a sideways smirk.

"Shut up," Dean whispered. He scowled at Sam, but it was short lived before it turned into a muted smile.

—  
>—<p>

_November 1st_

_Both Sam and Dean have assured me that neither of them will read this without my permission. While I trust them both, I find it contradictory that Sam has asked me not to write in my native language. Perhaps he is being truthful. Perhaps he wishes me to become accustomed to this more human language. Speaking it comes naturally. Writing it does not. There is no art in this alphabet, no beauty, though there is infinite room for expression, which Enochian lacks. Angels have no need to express themselves._

_The concept of journaling about personal matters is just as foreign as these symbols I am writing, these letters. I know only of hunters' journals, chronicles of information, of evil and how to vanquish it. John Winchester's journal held nothing of his feelings. He never wrote of such matters, unless it was on those pages that were torn out. Maybe it was on those pages he told his sons he loved them, how wonderful they are. I wish he had left them there._

_Sam told me that doing this will help me cope with what I have done, what I have become, but my sins are too great to be absolved by ink alone. Words will not tell me who I am now, but I think these two boys might be able to. They are more kind and more forgiving than any of my former kin in Heaven. If it is their wish to see me through this, allowing them to try is the least I can do to begin to be worth their loving concern._

_I am to use these pages to recount moments that inspire gratitude and happiness. Sam said that these may be as insignificant or as grand as I wish, as long as it is something._

_I will start small. It seems the most logical place to begin._

_Today, I am grateful for this remarkable journal, for the bottle of Ibuprofen that was left by the coffee pot this morning. In Dean's words, I am a lightweight. Though this temporary bodily misery seems a fair price to pay for the warmth I felt last night. It has been said many times now that we are a family, but I do not believe that I had a true grasp on that word until now. I had a family in Heaven, but not like this. It was not welcoming or encouraging. There was no laughter or sadness or love because we were all the same with the same thoughts and same programming. Down here there is individuality, that awful, troublesome thing that breeds conflict and war. Here there are movies and chocolate and strange amounts of pumpkin-flavored things._

_After Dean's resurrection, I have always preferred it here. I am only now just beginning to understand why._

_Castiel_


	3. Pizza

"Yeah. Nah man, it's cool. Don't worry about it. Yeah, first thing. We'll see you tomorrow."

Dean caught the tail end of Sam's conversation as he strolled into the library. Freshly dressed from a shower, he ruffled his fingers rapidly back and forth through his still-damp hair, silently delighting in the microscopic droplets that he felt erupting into the space around his head.

"See who tomorrow?" Dean asked. He came up behind Sam's chair and tapped his hands on the top of the wooden back.

"Garth," Sam said. If he was trying to sound excited about it, he was doing a piss-poor job of it. "Guy needs a hand with a witch problem."

Dean plopped into the chair next to Sam. "A hand."

"Apparently his local go-to guys aren't rising to the call of duty on this one."

"So he calls in the big guns, huh?" Dean snorted. "Figures."

Sam tossed his phone onto the table. "Yeah."

"Sounds like he's outta luck, then. Cas is nowhere close to getting back into the ring, and we're sure as shit not leaving him here."

Sam frowned. "I think he'd be fine for a couple days."

"_No_. We're not going on a fucking hunt, Sammy. Now call assface the fourth back and tell him to get somebody else!"

Sam's eyes widened visibly, gaze trained on something across the room. Dean turned around to see Cas stalled at the end of the hall with a stack of dirty dishes in his hands, headed to the kitchen from his bedroom. The fallen angel's face reddened and he looked sheepishly at Dean.

"I apologize for keeping you two from your job. I will try to be more accommodating."

He sounded so defeated it hit Dean like a jab to his gut.

"Cas, that's not how it is. Just— just go put those in the sink and get back here, alright?"

Dean watched Cas tighten his lips and walk off into the kitchen with downcast eyes. The guy was actually wearing jeans today. _Shit._ They'd been making progress! Cas wasn't closing his door, his appetite had picked up, and now he was actually bringing his dirty dishes out of his room. Shit.

Dean wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he'd just dragged them all two giant steps backward.

When Cas returned from the kitchen he took the seat next to Dean, angling it slightly towards the brothers. He looked between both of their faces, patient yet expectant, still a touch of hurt in his furrowed brow.

It was hard to accept the fact that dealing with Cas nowadays was a little too much like trying to handle a frightened animal, but there it was. Speak softly, approach with caution— no sudden movements, no harsh words, however honest they were.

"We're not going," Dean repeated bluntly. "Sammy here is."

Cas' eyes widened. Sam scoffed in the snide way that made his mouth twitch in indignation.

"I am, huh?"

"Yeah, you are," Dean said in his _'I am your older brother and you will do what I friggin' tell you to'_ voice. "Garth said he needs a hand, right? Not two, not three. _A_ hand. _One_. And that's what he's gonna get."

Dean abruptly scooted back on his chair and stood, patting Cas on the shoulder.

"Come on, I'll help you with the dishes."

Nobody said another word about it.

Sam rolled out of the Men of Letters' garage early the next morning in the old Chevelle, chasing the rising sun alone.

—

Dean lasted until a few minutes past noon before it started to get to him.

He'd known. He always thought about it from time to time at the end of October, so why should this year be any different? But during their tiff the day before, his only thoughts were on how to right the situation. How to not drop Garth (because yeah, he was a dweeb but he was a pretty alright guy) or put Cas in any danger, either at the hands of a witch or his own demons (metaphorically of course, because _literally_ would be a fucking nightmare he didn't even want to think about).

He'd done what he'd had to do, but sending Sam off wasn't such a good idea. Not on the second of November.

Maybe his little brother would be lucky enough not to remember, or only give it a passing thought if he did. Not that he'd be thinking about their mother, of the blessedly normal childhood they'd had stolen from them in a rush of embers. No. Dean knew that Sam would dwell on the life he'd been denied instead. For his little brother, it would always come back to Jess.

Dean made it until 1:19 before he found himself outside the fallen angel's door. It was ajar again, just like on Halloween, but still he knocked again anyway.

"Come in, Dean."

Because who else would it be? The two of them had the bunker to themselves for the next few days. It was just Dean and his festering memories and a graceless man who couldn't seem to realize that he was still their angel, even without the wings.

The once-seraph looked up at him. Cas closed John Winchester's journal and placed it down in the tumbling mess of blankets. The tense discussion the day before and the studious look now lodged resolutely on Cas' face told Dean all he needed to know.

Cas was brushing up on his hunting knowledge. He wasn't ready to help them out yet, but he _wanted to_, and for Dean, that was more than enough for now.

Already feeling the slightest bit less despondent, Dean awkwardly waved a hand as he stepped into the room. "Hey."

"Is something wrong, Dean?"

"Nah, I just… You've been holed up inside since you got back. You getting cabin fever yet?"

Cas tilted his head and squinted in confusion. "I do not feel ill."

"No, of course you don't," he laughed weakly. "Do you wanna go for a drive, Cas? Just to get out for a bit? I changed Baby's oil yesterday and she's aching for a road trip."

Dean felt the fallen angel's gaze on him intensify before tearing away. Cas blinked down at his lap and then cast his eyes to the side wall in consideration.

"Yes," Cas sighed, looking back at Dean. He sounded almost relieved. "I would like that."

—

It takes about half an hour to to get out to the main highway after leaving Lebanon, snaking through it's narrow back roads. It's also about how long it took for Cas to fall asleep with his cheek tucked into the curve of his seatbelt.

Dean lowered the volume and let him rest.

It was probably his fault the guy didn't sleep much the night before anyway.

Cas had washed up and thrown on fresh clothes, so new they still had the tags on them. Today it was a flattering pair of dark blue boot-cut jeans with a black t-shirt and rich green jacket pulled over it. Dean had pulled the Impala around front while Cas finished getting ready and had a front-row seat to the fallen angel's first step outside the bunker since the Fall.

Taking in the crisp light of day, the bright blue sky and the splattered gradient of green to brown that decorated the autumn trees, Cas' eyes shown with a wonder that Dean hadn't seen there in months.

He thought it was, for lack of a better word, beautiful.

The Impala sped down US 24-E, a familiar drive with familiar plains stretching out before and behind them, thin rivulets carrying water through the pale golden landscape like veins. It was a calm drive, like it always was.

When Cas began to stir, Dean turned and saw him try to blink the sleep from his heavy eyelids. He smirked, knowing without having to tell Cas to turn that he had a big indent on the side of his face from the seatbelt.

"Welcome back," Dean said.

Cas shifted in his seat and looked at the faded glow of the dashboard clock. "I did not mean to sleep that long."

"Almost three hours. You must've been beat, man."

Cas hummed in agreement and focused his attentions out the window.

Dean could feel the tension explode in the car like a gas-bomb as they passed a little green sign that read _'Lawrence - 3.'_

Cas' voice was dark and deep as he said, "Dean, where are we going?"

The hunter leaned back in his seat and drummed his hands on the wheel.

"We're getting pizza."

—

The sun was setting when Dean parked on a side-street (less crowded, no meter) and they rounded the corner onto the main drag. Cas followed at his side without questioning him as they passed under the striped green and red overhang and ducked into Papa Keno's pizzeria.

As they waited in line at the counter, Dean asked Cas what type of pizza he liked and of course, he didn't know.

"Well, how hungry are you?"

Cas breathed in the smells wafting from the ovens, his eyes passing over the partial pies inside the glass display. "Quite, actually."

When their turn came, Dean ordered them an eighteen inch pie— half pepperoni and spicy Italian sausage, half Hawaiian, all extra cheese. With his brief time with Jimmy and then Cas' reaction to Famine, Dean had more than a good hunch that the new human was a meat pizza kind of guy.

They settled into one of the plastic-seated booths with a paint-chipped table while they waited for their order to cook. Cas studied their surroundings, taking in the atmosphere, the sights and sounds and aromas of this simple human place that was so strangely new to him. He could get used to this, Dean thought, having Cas across from him, grabbing a bite and just simply hanging out. Sure, the angel had tagged along on some of their diner outings in the past, but just as a guest, not a participant. This was different. This could be better than it had been before, but all in good time.

"Why are we here?" Cas asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

"Best pizza I've ever had," Dean replied simply.

"You know what I meant, Dean. We could have gotten pizza much closer to the bunker."

"Yeah, well… I like this place."

Cas nodded towards a framed certificate on the wall. Somewhere at the bottom it read _'Est. 1991.'_

"It wasn't here when you were."

"No, but… I always refused to come back to town, Cas. I didn't for years, not until Sam and I took care of a poltergeist at our old house almost a decade ago. But I realized then, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, coming back. So Sammy and I started to, occasionally. Maybe just to make peace with it, I don't know. We'd drive through when we were passing by. We stopped here once just because I really wanted some fucking pizza, and it just stuck, I guess."

The man behind the counter called out _'Winchester!'_ and set the cardboard box down on the glass. Dean couldn't help but laugh to himself as several faces in the restaurant twisted up in surprise at the old name.

Maybe he was the ghost now, returning to his old haunt.

Dean got up and nudged Cas' arm. "Come on, let's go."

"We're not eating here?"

"I've got a better idea."

—

Watching Cas try to hold the hot pizza box steady on his lap while Dean drove was one of the funniest things he'd seen in days. He joked that he'd better keep it level so the cheese didn't slosh to one side, and Cas kept shifting the box around in his burning hands, on his overheated legs.

The Impala rolled into an empty field just outside of town and Dean took the pizza from Cas, opting to let the fallen angel take the six-pack of some local brew they'd picked up along the way. Dean placed the box on the roof while he hopped onto the hood of the car, motioning for Cas to do the same. Cas set the six-pack down in the middle and climbed up, stretching his legs out along the solid metal.

Dean reached for a slice of pepperoni and sausage, and Cas did the same.

Cas studied the pseudo-triangular thing in his hands before taking a hesitant first bite. When he did, his face lit up and he smiled.

"You're right, Dean," he said. "This is very good."

"Told you."

Dean twisted off the cap of a beer and held it out to him. Cas held the slice in both of his hands and looked at Dean uncertainly. He turned to rest the pizza down on the box but Dean stopped him, putting the open beer back in the cardboard sleeve.

"Like this, Cas." Dean straightened out his already-folded slice and bent it down the middle again in demonstration.

The crust crunched as Cas mimicked him, freeing up his left hand to grab the beer. He took a sip and set it back down, returning to his pizza.

They ate in companionable silence for a bit, the only words being Cas' surprise at how strangely well the pineapple paired with the other ingredients when they tried the Hawaiian side next. The cool November air and glittering stars above were enough entertainment for both of them.

Half-way through their pie and six-pack, Dean heard Cas inhale as if if to speak, but the sound fell short.

"Something on your mind?" Dean asked.

Cas swallowed the bite in his mouth before speaking cautiously. "We did not visit your home. I thought you would wish to drive past it, at the very least."

"Nah," Dean said dismissively. "Don't need to."

"Why not?"

"Because it's someone else's home now. It's not the same. No reason to go there if it's not."

"Not even to remind you?"

"Nope. Sure, I lived there once and there's still little pieces of the place that feel so damn familiar it kills me, but it's not mine. Hell, it hasn't been for thirty years now."

"But it _was_ yours, once," Cas said. "It was taken from you."

"I'm not saying I don't still get angry about it. I do, sometimes. And you know what?" Dean turned and looked at Cas, who wore a somber expression on his face as he stared out at the dark horizon. "That's okay."

Cas turned his head slightly, meeting Dean's eyes.

"It's okay to be hurt, to miss it. It gets less and less but it never really goes away completely. Days like today, they bring it all back up to the surface and I fucking hate it. So yeah, I like to come back, but I can't go home because that's not home anymore. It's just nice to stop by every now and then when I get upset about it. It reminds me that I've come to terms with it all already."

Cas inhaled a shaky breath, his chest rising. "Because you have a new home now."

"Yeah, Cas. We both do."

—

_November 3rd_

_I do not know if our trip to Lawrence was more for my sake or for Dean's. I have known him long enough to know that the pain in his eyes was genuine. He may be able to hide it from others, but not from me. Perhaps yesterday was meant for the both of us._

_I feel that in attempting to describe our conversation, the essence of it would be lost. I do not need to recount it here to know that I will be able to revisit it always._

_Dean gave much to me yesterday. He chose to refrain from the witch hunt to watch over me. He allowed me to accompany him, to partake in some of his favorite food. He offered me pieces of human wisdom that would have taken me years to discover for myself. While I am grateful beyond measure for each of these things, I am most touched that he is beginning to confide in me._

_I know that his opening up to me now may be from a sense of obligation or guilt. That is fine. Still I cherish it and will take whatever he freely gives to me. His friendship is the only thing I have ever truly desired as my own, and if it is offered, I will embrace it. In this, I am selfish. For this, I will never apologize._

_Castiel_


	4. Leaves

Dean and Cas spent the night at a roadside motel outside of Lawrence. The only vacancies were single queen rooms. It was like pulling teeth trying to get Cas to accept his offer of letting him have the bed, but he was down for the count almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Dean rigged up something semi-comfortable out of the extra pillows and the two table chairs and slept a fitful sleep, fruitlessly hoping that the man at the front desk hadn't seen his doubtlessly raging blush when the keys were handed to him with an assuming wink.

Because yes, the motel employee dared to presume too much, but he had also presumed too well, at least for Dean's comfort. He refused to accept that the walls he had built around himself were even the slightest bit translucent. It was hard enough knowing they were made of glass, that just one crack could shatter his resolve.

The next morning they stopped at a diner and ensured they were highly caffeinated before getting back onto the road to Lebanon. Dean let Cas pick the music. Cas found himself partial to Pink Floyd, asking why Dean did not play it more often. Dean told him that yeah, he liked it, but it wasn't hunting music. It wasn't loud enough, noisy enough.

Not enough to drown out his thoughts. It never was.

When they got back to the bunker, it looked like God had sneezed and blew ninety percent of the leaves off of the trees. Baby's wheels on the driveway sounded like crackling Pop Rocks and the steps down to the bunker door were almost entirely filled with leaves.

"It must have been windy while we were away," Cas said while Dean was smacking away the dead foliage so they could reach the door, like a dog digging in the snow.

He turned to Cas with a face that said, _'You think?'_

Dean yanked the door open and felt the bouncy push back of the leaves behind it.

"We'll deal with this crap tomorrow."

—

Tomorrow found Dean sleeping in until almost ten thirty. Cas' door was still closed, no signs in the kitchen of the guy having been up and about. Dean didn't know the fallen angel's sleeping habits. Maybe he was still passed out, maybe he was up, using the quiet morning to write in his journal.

Dean had already wondered once or twice what Cas was writing in there. Not that it was his business, he thought, but it was interesting to consider. Cas was always so reserved and guarded, his composure steeled even when he showed the most emotion he could as an angel. But it wouldn't be like that, not anymore. He was human now and the armor was off. It was time to learn what Cas was really about. Not Castiel, shield of God and angel of the Lord with higher purposes always in his mind. It was time for Cas to just be Cas, to be selfish for once in his life.

Dean could admit to himself that yeah, he was thrilled to see it all unfold. It was already starting to happen. On the way home in the car the morning before, he'd gotten Cas to laugh. It wasn't one of his moderately amused angel chuckles, but something warm and genuine. His teeth showed, cheeks dimpling, nose scrunching slightly as the thin lines around his eyes creased in delight. It was short, but it was wonderful.

He put a big pot of the hazelnut roast on to brew, then went off to the bathroom for his morning routine.

Cas was at the kitchen table when Dean returned freshly washed and dressed. The black mug was already in his hands. A second cup sat in front of the chair across from him, steam still snaking up from the surface.

"Good to see you up and about, Cas," Dean said. He plunked down into the chair and took a gratuitous whiff of the hot drink before him, smirking when he saw it'd been left black. "Thanks for the coffee."

Cas nodded at Dean in friendly greeting. "You prepared it. It was the least I could do."

"You eat yet?" Dean asked. He took a cautious first sip of the coffee, followed by a second once he discovered it wouldn't scald his tongue.

"I have not," Cas replied, drinking freely of his own mug.

Dean started to ask Cas what he was in the mood for when his thigh shook violently and an obnoxious beeping sound cut the air. He pulled the phone from his pocket and slid his thumb to unlock the screen.

Of course it was Sam.

_Nothing out of the ordinary. Garth says hi. Should be back tomorrow night?_

Dean typed out a quick reply asking how it was going, then tossed the phone onto the table.

"Sam's holding up just fine without us," he told Cas. He kicked his chair back and took his coffee with him to go inspect the inside of the fridge. "How's an omelet sound? You ever have an omelet?"

"I have not, but I will try one if you wish to cook them."

Dean took the eggs out from the top shelf, nudging the door back open with his hip when it began to close as he put the Styrofoam case the counter along with his coffee cup. He began sifting through the produce drawer.

"Weird-ass little brother eating raw peppers. Last one's ours, he can suck it."

There was cheese in his left hand and butter in his right when his cell phone rang on the table.

"Can you get that, Cas? It's just Sam."

Cas eyed the phone suspiciously and looked to Dean in discomfort, but the elder Winchester was undeniably preoccupied. He cleared his throat and answered it.

"Hello, Sam. Hello? Yes, this is Dean's phone. Yes, Winchester…? Who is this? I don't— Yes, but how do you know my name?"

Dean had just lit the gas when he recognized the shriller voice, muffled against Cas' ear. He laughed.

"Heya, Charlie!" Dean called out loud. He heard the answering indecipherable string of excited high-pitched female babbling as Cas wrenched the phone from his ear with a wince. "Just put her on speaker."

Cas made an ugly face at the phone as he held it away from him, pressing the icon on the screen. Charlie's voice came in loud and clear as Cas put the phone back down on the table.

_'Hellooooo? Deeeeeean, hello? Are you ignoring me? Why do you have your angel answering the phone for you, huh? I know you've got an ego on you, but damn! Talk to me, broseph!'_

"No need to shout, Charlie, you're on speaker phone," Dean called over his shoulder. He made an exaggerated face of apology for Cas before turning back to start cracking eggs.

_'HI DEAN!'_

"Hi Charlie. What's going on?"

_'Not going to introduce me? That is _so_ not chivalrous of you. I thought I taught you better than that, handmaiden. I am officially stealing your next ration of mead at the faire.'_

Dean talked loudly as he cooked so that his voice would carry back into the room, reaching the tiny speaker on his smartphone. "Charlie, the person you just verbally assaulted is Castiel. Cas, that is Charlie, our Dick-hacking nerd who likes boobs."

_'Oh my god, I knew it was him! No WAY! Like, Mr. Helpful Dreamy Castiel?'_

"Yes," Dean forced out. He turned to Cas, who was looking at him with an animated eyebrow. Dean hoped he wasn't blushing again and spoke softer so that the phone wouldn't pick it up. "She read Chuck's books, blame him."

_'Pleasure to meet you Mr. Castiel! I've heard SO much about you! Well, not so much, it was mostly in the books, but you know what I mean.'_

"But we haven't met, we're merely having a telephone conversation," Cas said.

There was a colorful giggle. _'You really weren't kidding, huh, Dean?'_

"Now why would I do that?" Dean replied teasingly.

"Kidding about what?" Cas asked. It went unanswered by both parties.

_'So, when are you Three Musketeers gonna have any room at the inn?'_

"When are you thinking of dropping by?" Dean asked.

_'Well my girlfriend's visiting her parents in Vancouver and I kinda sorta forgot to renew my X-Box Live, so I was thinking maybe later today if that isn't too horribly soon and inconvenient like I know it probably sounds now that I've said it?'_

Dean cut the top and bottom off of the mixed red and green pepper (they're more interesting and organic, Sam said) and started dicing it. "Sam won't be back for a day or two," he explained.

_'Totes fine with me. How 'bout it, guys?'_

He turned to Cas, volume lowered once more. "Only if you're okay with it."

Cas held his gaze for a long moment before turning back to the phone. "You may visit," he said.

_'SWEET! Ahhhh, thank you guys! I'd be so freakin' bored, you have no idea. They're doing maintenance on all of the WOW servers right now too. Such bad timing. But YEAH! Um, I'm going to go get packing, I'll bring some games and stuff, pick up some brewskis and all that jazz. I can be there by dinnertime-ish. What do you want? My treat!'_

"Not pizza," Dean said as he scraped the bits of pepper off the cutting board and into the concoction. "We just had that, so anything else is good."

_'Vague enough for me! I'll see you later, D-man. Can't wait to actually meet your new house mate! Ciao, boys!'_

The phone lit up as the call was disconnected and there was a heavy silence in the kitchen.

Dean was watching Cas with an amused smirk set deep in his cheek. The fallen angel's eyes were widened in a messy jumble of surprise and confusion, mouth agape.

Cas set both his hands on his mug and took a long, thoughtful sip. "No coffee for that one," he said.

—

Dean didn't understand why Cas tensed up as he handed him a rake.

He'd asked if Cas wanted to give him a hand with yard work, the term flowing from his lips without a second thought. Maybe to the fallen angel, raking and yard work weren't connected. For some reason, there was trepidation and a startling intense hurt piercing through his blue eyes as he looked at Dean.

Except obviously it wasn't the rake, because why would Cas even know what a rake was, let alone ever have had the need to use one? If heaven even had trees, they probably had those low-rank naked-ass cupids walking around using their puffy white wings as leaf-blowers. Cas had probably just had too much stimulation much too quickly.

Dean reached to take the rake back, but Cas jerked it sharply away.

"No," Cas said, clutching the wooden pole with two hands against his chest. It stood up straight and shot past his head.

"You sure, Cas?" Dean asked. "If you want some downtime, want to be alone for a while, you know I get it. I can handle a little leaf pile."

Cas shook his head and looked down at the rake in his hands, then back up to Dean with a bit more reverence than a simple chore should muster. "I would like to help you."

Dean lifted a curious eyebrow at Cas but dropped it quickly, cocking his head towards the leaf-blanketed driveway. "Alright, let's get to it."

Dean instructed Cas on the basic mechanics of leaf-raking, of the long sweeping reaches and back and forth steps, of how sometimes the stupid metal piece of shit just stabs them instead of raking them and you have to get all up in there and just rip them off the prongs.

They worked for most of the afternoon. Cas seemed to find a strong sense of satisfaction in the task.

They weren't technically legal residents of the township, so Dean had no clue what to do with the leaves once their mountainous pile was completed. Some places just left them on the curb, some had bags. He figured as long as they were out of the driveway and not turning the outside stairway into a dry crunchy pool, they were fine off to the side, just like that.

But as he and Cas were standing, admiring their handiwork, Dean got an idea.

"Hey, Cas?" Dean let his rake fall to the ground. "You know what's better than finally finishing getting all of 'em into a pile?"

Cas wiped his hands on his jeans, palms reddened with what would surely be callouses in time. "What, Dean?"

Above them, the pink and orange sky signaled the setting sun. Dean took several unnoticed steps back.

"Jumping in it."

Dean rushed forward, barreling into Cas. He caught him around the waist and Cas yelped as Dean dove them both into the gargantuan mound of leaves. Cas' limbs flailed until they landed with a _'whoosh!'_, sending leaves shooting up all around them in a mock volcano of rustic color. Dean felt the instinctive panic leave the tense arms of the man wrestling about beside him and let him go. The hunter's laughter and lazy movements must have clicked in Cas' brain, because Dean stood up, torso peeking out over the top, and didn't see the guy.

Then Dean had the ground ripped out from underneath him.

He practically shrieked as he fell backward, Cas laughing freely from beneath the stealthy cover as he gripped Dean's ankles. They laughed, play-fighting and wrestling like kids. Cas took to it like a natural. The pile was shortened, spreading out like a melting candle without a holder. Dean rolled only to have Cas pin him down, their bodies pressed and faces close.

Dean couldn't move, paralyzed not by the weight of him but how _not weird_ it felt to have Cas laying partially atop him, by how big and stunningly blue those eyes were, set in that smiling face.

Cas must have felt it too, because it was one hell of a spark.

The smile faded from the fallen angel's face, but neither of them moved.

"Dean," Cas said, low in volume and tone.

The hunter swallowed a lump in his throat. "Yeah?"

"You've let your guard down."

A split second allowed Dean to think Cas was being metaphoric. Then a giant fistful of leaves was shoved in his unshielded face and he had to pounce to catch Cas as he lunged to the side.

Somewhere above the sound of dead rustling plants, they heard a car door slam.

"_Wicked_ leaf pile!" Charlie's voice cried in childish delight.

Dean grabbed Cas' arm and dragged him up to his feet. Charlie was standing at the edge of the pile, grinning at them and holding a White Castle Crave Case.

"Round two later after we digest?" she asked hopefully.

Dean brushed some specks of leafy debris off of his jacket and pulled Charlie into a side hug. "As long as you're prepared for this guy to fight dirty," Dean said, motioning towards Cas. "For real this time— Charlie, Cas. Cas, Charlie."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Cas said. He was winded and covered with shredded bits of leaves and stems, but he managed a small smile for the girl.

"You too," Charlie said with a grin. "You like burgers?"

—

_November 4th_

_For a moment, I thought he knew that I watched him. That I was a coward, that I invaded the sanctity of his peaceful life. Such a simple task for Dean stood for everything I would have torn from him if I had been so selfish as to seek his help when he was finally free._

_I had not expected dread to be such an all-consuming emotion._

_I am so thankful that I was wrong. Instead of accusing me, of pinpointing one of my most shameful moments, when I needed him and almost tore down his happiness because of it, he asked for help. In a way, it is almost as if he needed me. I know that such a description is surely too grandiose for the situation, but I do not think it can be helped at the moment. In this moment I feel happy and it is absolutely invigorating._

_Our guest may or may not change that. I cannot yet predict it._

_Tonight we are to play a game called 'Risk.' I am unfamiliar with this. Charlie suggested using the table in the war room as the board and Dean was quite enthusiastic._

_He has already had several drinks and has begun picking bits of leaves off of me. I thought I had gotten them all. I have no intention of telling him to stop._

_Castiel_


	5. Racing

Witches were, if anything, mind-numbingly predictable. They were in most cases, at least. Sam hadn't been lying when he'd texted Dean and said that the case was your ordinary run-of-the-mill no-surprises witch hunt. A petulant and slightly unstable young lady and her impressionable sister just so happened to get left out of their rich grandfather's will, and thus decided that the reasonable course of action was to go all black magic on those relatives more fortunate than they were. Garth could've handled it himself if there hadn't been two of them to keep an eye on. Sam didn't even have to hurt anybody, only stand back in toasty horror as they self-immolated pyrokinesis style.

All in all, it was boring. All in all, he was kind of glad that Dean and Cas hadn't come along. Dean would've been all complaints and exaggerated sighs and Cas might have gotten the impression that all of their hunts were that dull, and maybe then decided to throw his hands up and say '_screw it_' to life as an honorary Winchester. No, it was better alone, even if Saturday had been miserable because of the anniversary.

Things were looking up on Tuesday, though, as Sam grabbed his duffel and a couple plastic bags out of the trunk of the Chevelle and made his way up to the library. He smiled to find Cas sitting at the table looking clean and dressed and immersed in a thick encyclopedia.

"Glad to see someone's awake," Sam said in greeting as he approached. "What're you reading?"

Cas looked up with a welcoming light in his eyes and closed the book. "The previous Men of Letters have made many notes on the work of Dee and Kelley, but all of their interpretations are wildly inaccurate."

Sam pulled out a chair and sat, setting his bags down to the side. "Refresh my memory?" he asked.

"The occultists who made the first human recordings of Enochian," Cas explained. "I thought it would be useful if I studied their misinformation and corrected it."

Sam smiled. It was great to see Cas taking the initiative on something like this, something important to both his own life and to the archives. "That'd be awesome Cas, thanks."

"I trust that Dean was being honest when he said you were doing fine?"

"Oh yeah, nothing worth mentioning. Cakewalk for us at this point."

"Good," Cas said. He must have seen Sam's sidelong glance down the corridor because he followed with: "Your friend Charlie is visiting. She is using your bedroom. Both she and Dean are still asleep."

"But it's one in the afternoon," Sam said with a knowing laugh. He was glad to hear the redhead had stopped by; Charlie always seemed to lift their spirits with her kind heart and relentless energy.

Cas gave a weak laugh from low in his throat. "I went to bed after we finished playing Risk last night. If I am not mistaken, they stayed up quite late watching cartoons on Dean's computer."

"Risk, huh? Let me guess— Charlie won?"

Cas crossed his arms and leaned forward on his elbows across the table, smirking at him. "Real military experience offered more of an upper hand, actually."

"Ah," Sam said, letting the word trail off into a laugh. "Congratulations, Commander."

"They were quite surprised," Cas admitted proudly. The upward curve of his grin dipped back down a slight but still noticeable amount. "Charlie I understand, but Dean must have forgotten that about me."

"He wouldn't forget, Cas. He probably just didn't put two and two together. It's just a game." Sam frowned, trying to figure out how to broach the topic without disrupting Cas' delicate positive mood. "We've known you as our friend a lot longer than we knew you as a soldier."

Cas opened his mouth but quickly shut it, frowning and looking away from Sam. "I understand that," he said curtly.

Sam took it to mean that Cas had no desire to talk about it. Whether it was Dean or Heaven or something in between, Sam was damn curious, but he'd respect that. Rather than dwell in venomous quiet, he reached for one of the bags and set it on the table with a rustle of plastic.

"Garth and I had to drop by the library for some quick research. They were having a sale, four for a dollar. They must have been trying to make some shelf space," Sam explained. He pulled a few paperbacks out of the bag for show, dropping them back inside once Cas had seen. "I thought we could use some more fiction."

Cas reached for the bag with a hesitant, asking hand. Sam nodded with an encouraging '_Go ahead_,' and the fallen angel pulled the books toward him. He began sifting through them with a true bibliophile's respect, brushing them gently about in their neat stacks, only disrupting them enough to catch a glance of their varying titles and authors.

"There's not much I've heard of aside from the giants like Patterson and Koontz, I think there might be an Anne Rice or two in there," Sam said. "Nothing earth-shattering, but they all look well-loved. Someone must have thought they were good. For the price, I couldn't say no."

Cas looked up and smiled, genuine and toothy. "This is a pleasant surprise."

"There's three more bags in the car." Sam grinned.

Cas glanced over the edge of the table curiously. "What else did you buy?" he asked.

Sam reached for the other plastic bag, thick and white and squared almost as if was trying to be a high-class designer shopping bag. He set it on the chair next to him and cleared his throat, seeming unsure as he looked back to his friend.

"I had to pick up some new shoes, and I couldn't help but think…" Sam trailed off and shook his head. "Your vessel— _you_— well, it's easy to tell that Jimmy was at least somewhat athletic, like he might have been a runner or something, you know?" He pulled a brown shoe box from the bag which had the word _Asics_ scrawled in blue. "I'm totally jumping the gun, Cas, I know, but it's something that really keeps me grounded. You can say no if you don't want to. But if it's in your blood and your body's already built for it, it might be worth a try."

Cas' eyes betrayed no feelings on the matter. He reached for the box and Sam pushed it towards him. "You're correct, Sam," he said. "Jimmy was fond of the activity. I recall observing him on several occasions when he would drop his daughter off at dance class. He would run laps around the nearby park until it was time to take her home. It seemed… strenuous and uncomfortable, but I could always sense that he was more at peace because of it."

"It _is_ a love-hate relationship," Sam said knowingly. When the hell was the last time Cas had talked about Jimmy? He couldn't think of a single instance.

Cas flipped open the cardboard lid of the box and chuckled as he pulled out one of the shoes. It was all neon lime green rubber and black mesh and cushy gray padding, the sole tracked with bouncy webbing. The words '_Gel-Nimbus_' were stamped into the side and stitched into the inside heel.

"I saw you borrowed a pair of Dean's sneakers a couple weeks back. They seemed to fit, so I got the same size," Sam said.

"These are almost as difficult on the eye as Jimmy's were,' Cas commented, turning the shoe in his hands. "They were orange and green."

Sam reached into the bag and pulled out another shoe box with a big Nike _swoosh_ on the side. "Here's mine," he said, opening it and presenting it to Cas with a grin. They were criss-crossed all over with fluorescent orange and sky blue.

Cas laughed the genuine laugh of his that Sam hadn't seen yet. "I believe you win," he said.

—

The rhythm of controlled breathing and pounding feet was accompanied by a pleasant sound that was unique to only autumn runs: _leaves_. They flattened underfoot, swished about, scraping their curling edges on the well-worn trails and stretches of road as they were tossed about by the November breeze and the motion of colorful shoes. Sam found that he sometimes aimed for them, liking the way they crunched with a childlike satisfaction he didn't think he'd ever grow out of. Running didn't always have to be work. It was allowed to be fun, if you let it.

They took it slow. Although Cas took to it like a natural, they had agreed that neither of them really knew how the vessel had functioned while Cas had possessed it, if it had remained in some kind of stasis or if any cardiovascular or muscular conditioning was lost. It was better to ease into it, to not take any chances of Cas injuring himself. They alternated between running and walking every quarter mile or so, if Sam's estimates were to be trusted. The route they traced wound around the bunker, on some side streets and through the stretch of woods surrounding them.

They talked during the times where they slowed to a walk. Their discussions began with easy matters, of Sam's hunt and Cas' vague explanation of how he and Dean had gone out for pizza and done yard work while Sam was away. Sam told Cas stories about Charlie, giving the fallen angel a clearer understanding of the girl they'd come to view as a sister. Cas eventually briefly mentioned Heaven, of how it really wasn't anything he missed— that the beauty of Earth and it's inhabitants was more precious to him now and had been since before he Fell, and that the things he missed were not quite so sweeping and grand, but personal instead. Sam told him he didn't have to talk about it unless he wanted to. Cas said he would, in time.

It was peaceful. It was soothing, feeling the cool breeze pass over sweat-damp clothes. It was great having an actual heart-to-heart with Cas for the first time in what felt like months. Usually those were reserved for Dean. Yeah, his brother and Cas had their weird bond thing, whatever that was these days, whatever it _actually_ meant, but when it came down to it, it was the three of them now. Sam looked at it as having another brother and today was the first time it truly felt that way.

Cas slowed to a stop and Sam followed suit, catching his breath and windmilling his arms which were getting stiff from holding them at his sides.

"You okay, Cas?" Sam asked.

Panting lightly, Cas nodded but then held his gaze upward through the trees. The lacy patches of sky they could see through the branches and remaining leaves were growing dark. "It's getting cloudy," Cas said. He sniffed the air. "I smell rain."

"We've still got almost a mile to go," Sam said. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Maybe it'll hold out."

It did, but only for another half mile.

The sky opened up and rain began to fall steadily, the kind that wasn't so bad when you were standing in it with an umbrella but felt like a deluge if you were trying to drive anywhere.

Sam reached over and patted Cas on the arm. "Race you home?" he asked with a grin. The rain was already beginning to mat his hair to the sides of his face, giving him a strong resemblance to a wet dog.

Sam's enthusiasm must have been convincing because Cas replied with a firm, "Okay."

This was Sam's favorite route. It was long and scenic, great views, not too many spots to worry about cars (not that any driver would miss him with those screaming loud shoes). It was also forgiving: the last stretch was all a steady decline.

They ran in earnest, legs kicking back and propelling forward instead of just a moderate padding of jogging feet. The rain hit only the front side of their clothes, tinging them a damp and darker shade while the backs of them remained almost immaculately dry. Water slipped in droplets from their soaked hair down over their faces but it felt cool on their heated skin. The crunch of leaves on the path soon turned to a silly squishing noise as puddles formed and their shoes were weighed down with water. Their legs moved faster and faster as they ran downhill, momentum carrying them forward through the slick falling curtains.

Cas was out of practice, but he was quick. Sam was quicker though and decided that if he were Dean, he probably would have let Cas make it to the bunker door before him. But Sam wasn't going to coddle him. He was going to act like a tough older brother for once and give Cas something to strive for, to improve on. Cas needed that, he thought. The fallen angel was ancient and even his new body had a few years on Sam, but he still needed a brotherly hand to guide him in this new phase of his life. Whatever Dean and Cas had going on— Sam was too fed up with it to even bother trying to decipher it anymore even though he was pretty confident in his suspicions— well, it sure wasn't a sibling-like relationship. Dean was far from perfect, but he was the best big brother that Sam could've asked for. Sam would try and be the same for Cas, the supportive friend that the fallen angel's real siblings had failed to be.

Sam grabbed the door handle just as it was pulled open from the inside and a towel was thrown across his face.

"Get in here you asshole," Dean said, his voice gruff and thick. He yanked his brother inside and reached behind him to quickly pull Cas in before roughly closing and locking the bunker door.

"Good morning to you too, Dean," Sam said with a laugh. He ran the towel over his face and ruffled his long dripping hair.

"Shut up," Dean barked, since it was really closer to four in the afternoon. He leaned over the railing and shouted: "Charlie, put the kettle on, they're back!"

"Ooh, tea?" Sam grinned.

"Hot tea," Dean stressed. He let a second slightly fluffier towel slip off his shoulder and swirled it around Cas, pulling it tight around him. "Dumbass, you're gonna get sick. It might not feel cold out there when you're running, but it's friggin' November."

Cas gripped the towel and hugged it around himself with a timid smile. "I'm fine, Dean, but thank you."

Dean huffed and headed down the stairs, waving for them to follow. He turned to Sam mid-way. "Dude, you're never going to believe it."

"What's that?" Sam asked. His tone said he was humoring his brother, more than anything.

"Charlie gave us the password to her Netflix account."

Sam's whole face lit up.

Today was a good day.

—

As it turns out, Charlie also brought her old Nintendo 64.

After a surprisingly delicious dinner of stir-fry pork and vegetables thanks to Sam, Dean helped Cas set up the system (because hey, learning is good no matter what it is, right?). Sam had just joined the two profound dorks who were trying to figure out why the sound wasn't working but the picture was, when Charlie walked into the room with a thirty-pack in one heavy hand and a handle of Jack Daniels in the other, a half-empty bag of red cups hanging between her fingers.

"Okay boys, the rules are simple. _One_: you must finish half a beer every race. I have already marked everyone's cups with a Sharpie so there's no room for guesswork. Number _two_: Absolutely no drinking while driving under _any circumstances_, you got that? That's illegal and totally not cool. If you break either of the rules, you gotta take a shot."

Sam snatched the remote from Dean's hand and fiddled with the settings. The menu music to _Mario Kart 64_ came to life.

"But drinking _then_ driving is okay?" Sam asked skeptically.

"Yes," Charlie said, setting everything down next to the television. "But only because it's fake, duh. You do it for real and I will _kill you_, Winchester. _Anyway_, there are two strategies. You can either chug it at the beginning of the race before you hit the gas, or you can pull over and take sips. You just gotta find out what works for you."

Sam and Cas sat on the floor at the foot of the bed with Charlie and Dean behind them on top of the bed, respectively. A pop-up folding table had been put between Sam and Cas so that Charlie and Dean had somewhere convenient to put their cups without flailing all over the place mid-race.

For a moment it seemed like there would be bloodshed before the game even started. There were three standard-issue Nintendo controllers: one purple, one black, one gray. The black one had a rumble pack. The fourth one was a see-through third-party piece of shit with fat handles and buttons that stuck. Charlie immediately dove for the black one, making a comment that she was the only female in the room so she should get the vibrator. Sam grabbed the gray controller without consulting Dean or Cas, leaving the two of them to decide who got the broken hunk of junk. Cas volunteered meekly, passing Dean the purple one, but Dean forced him to trade once he saw that Cas was having difficulty even making it past the menu screen.

Picking characters, Dean and Sam chose Mario and Luigi, mainly because Charlie wouldn't let them continue unless they did because '_duh, you're brothers, come on, you have to!_'. Cas, unversed in the ways of Nintendo, requested an explanation of all the characters before he decided. Ultimately he opted for Yoshi, claiming that it was because he was Mario and Luigi's companion and loyal steed.

Charlie burst out laughing.

"Cas, you are not our _steed_," Dean said. "We don't ride you."

"Well, I know I don't," Sam said under his breath. Charlie leaned forward and put her forehead to the back of Sam's head, the two of them chuckling like idiots.

Cas turned and looked up at Dean with confusion in his big blue eyes. "When I had my wings I would fly you wherever it was necessary. Surely that is similar?"

Dean was now red in the face because of the laughing geeks to his left, but he set his mouth and nodded at Cas. "If you want to be Yoshi, Cas, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you."

Cas pressed the button and the green saddled dinosaur lit up with a joyous cry of '_MEEP MOW!_'

"Slim pickings Charlie, but you're up," Sam said, shoving the girl off him.

"Let me guess," Dean said, "Princess Peach?"

Charlie scoffed. "Screw that." She moved the cursor to big burly Bowser and hit 'A'. "King Koopa, mothafuckas!"

Then they were off.

Right off the bat, Dean chose strategy number one, drinking his half beer before hitting the gas. His excuse was that once he actually got the goddamn button to work on his messed up controller it didn't seem to want to _un_work, sticking and leaving him perpetually leaning on the gas. Cas selected this method as well because he was blissfully unaware of the brake button and pulling off to the shoulder became an infuriating chore. Charlie opted for strategy number two and continuously parked in front of the ramps with acceleration tracks on them, making it harder for everyone to steal the boost.

Sam, however, went to college. Sam spent many a night with his old buddies at Stanford, racing and shooting and fighting and whatever other multi-player games will let a bunch of kids pass the night. Sam knew this game almost too well. He quickly developed his own strategy and decided to pull over on the final lap and drink his half beer in one go, letting himself fall into last place. This usually earned him the Blue Shell of Death or at least a lightning bolt, essentially having Luigi give his companions the big middle finger while stealing into first.

Sam almost always won.

Everyone's strategy got sloppy after a handful of races. Eventually the whiskey was opened. Unsurprisingly, eventually everyone became a belligerent shouting mess except for Cas, who just became quiet and more laser-focused. Eventually Dean had _enough_ of the stupid controller with it's stupid sticky buttons and flung it across the room, breaking the joystick. Charlie shoved him off the bed in revenge for the personal property damage, but Dean just decided to stay on the floor and sit next to Cas.

Barring risk of further damage, bodily or otherwise, they collectively agreed to call it quits.

Netflix marathons are always a good way to end the evening, anyway.

—

_November 6th_

_I am more fond of Charlie's presence than I had expected to be. Her spirit is light and pure. She brings out a side of Sam and Dean that I had not seen before. They are more playful and less prone to hostility when in her company. She is leaving us soon to return to her own home, but I hope that she will visit frequently in the future._

_Her presence will be missed, but I hope that this will afford me the opportunity to catch Dean in a more serious mood. He told me I could come to him to discuss what is troubling me, but there was just so much. It was too hard at that time to pinpoint any one thing when in truth it had been everything. I could have discussed these matters with Sam this afternoon, but he would not understand. Sam is dear to me, but he does not know me in the same way that Dean knows me. I am ready to speak, but I do not believe that Dean is ready to listen._

_Sam, however, is insightful in ways that still surprise me. Running today was difficult because of my recent inactivity, but it felt right. My body felt alive in a way that it hasn't thus far. It was freeing._

_It was the closest I have felt to flying without my wings._


	6. Tattoo

The morning and most of the afternoon after the Nintendo escapades was slept away. Not one of the four had gone to bed until after five A.M. when Sam had slammed his laptop shut, severing the video transfer to the television, claiming that if he didn't get some sleep his retinas were going to fry. Sam had already changed the sheets on his bed earlier in the day so they were no longer Charlie-mussed, so he shooed everyone else out into the hall and let them figure out the sleeping arrangements for themselves.

Almost as soon as Sam's door shut, Cas had said that Charlie should take his bed for the remainder of her stay. Dean had opened his mouth in protest, but it was too late and he'd had too many drinks to be persistent about it after Cas had insisted. Instead they teamed up to strip the sheets from Cas' bed and reapply Charlie's that had been balled up and set on a chair in the library to be dealt with when the time came. Charlie gave Cas a sweet 'thank you' and a sleepy hug around the fallen angel's arms filled with his own bedding as they stood in the doorway.

Dean wouldn't be certain when he awoke in the afternoon with a dull throbbing headache, but he thought that Charlie might have winked at him over Cas' shoulder before she bid them goodnight and shut the door.

Dean had tried to be generous and offered to let Cas use his room. He didn't specify whether or not he'd be using it too, because really, either option would have been fine. More than fine. He wanted Cas to have the warmth and comfort of his bed whether he was there to share it or not. Because that's what happens when you care about someone, right? You want to make them happy, keep them safe.

What Dean wanted ended up not mattering a damn bit because Cas was '_saintly_' and '_charitable_' and all of those other self-righteous words that Dean was beginning to equate with '_stubborn_' and '_serious self-worth issues_.' In his increasingly-tired haze, that last one came with a pinch of guilt. The Winchesters weren't exactly the best people to learn how to be human from.

It would have been fine if Cas had just declined Dean's offer, but no. Tired and coming off of a string of drinks, Cas had chuckled darkly and followed with: "I slept in the streets after I Fell. I think I'll be fine in the hallway."

That particular strain of guilt was too much to discuss at such a unholy hour of the morning. Dean left Cas standing in the hall and went to get one of the two pillows from his bed. He placed it on top of Cas' bundle of bedding, tucking it securely under the fallen angel's chin so it wouldn't fall off.

"Your pillowcases aren't going to do you any good if Charlie's got the pillows," Dean had said. Cas thinned his lips and nodded and disappeared down the hall as the bedroom door was shut.

It took several hours for Dean to finally calm his mind enough to fall asleep. When he woke up at one in the afternoon, he passed Sam and Cas' still-closed doors as he made his way to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face and brush his teeth.

When Dean instinctively found himself in the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, he confirmed his suspicions that he was the only one awake. Cas was curled up in his blankets against the vent at the base of the kitchen counter, sucking up the heat that trickled from it. Cas slept with his back to the room, looking sad and cold like a cat sponging warmth from where he could find it. There was the guilt again, lurching up his spine and settling into his chest. It did make Dean smile, though, albeit weakly, to see that Cas was using his pillow and hadn't even bothered to change the case.

—

A few pots of coffee and four BLTs (extra bacon with extra grease, Dean insisted as he cooked— "_Best thing for a hangover_," he argued) later, everyone was functioning like a passable human being.

Nobody mentioned the sleeping arrangements from the night before, but Dean tried to seem nonchalant about the matter and mentioned that they should clean up another one of dusty, cluttered rooms down the hall that hadn't been touched in half a century and turn it into a new guest room since Cas had moved into the old one. Sam perked at the thought of having a project while Cas and Charlie just made non-committal sounds of agreement.

Sam and Dean picked out a room a couple doors down from Dean's and agreed that they'd tackle the cleaning project another day when they weren't nursing twin headaches, but they gave the room a once-over and made a list of tools and supplies they'd need for the small renovation. After crossing the list against what Dean had scattered about the garage, the brothers hopped into the Impala and made their way to the nearest hardware store.

They'd asked if Cas or Charlie wanted to come along, but both declined. Charlie was sprawled out on her stomach on Sam's bed playing _Turok: Dinosaur Hunter_ while Cas sat behind her, feet flat on the blanket and knees up, leaning against the headboard with an old library copy of _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.

"Shit! Shit shit _shitshitshit_- no! NO! Fucking raptors!"

Cas glanced up from the book as Charlie was smacking the controller into her forehead and the television made a sound that seemed to indicate that the character had been killed.

"Perhaps they wouldn't attack you if you hadn't shot and killed all of their friends," Cas offered.

Charlie groaned, the noise starting low and rapidly escalating in pitch until it turned into something shrill. She looked back at Cas over her shoulder, her red ponytail tossing to the side. "Where's the fun in life if I can't mow down an entire family of dinosaurs with a shotgun?"

"You could try reading," Cas gestured with the book in his hand. A grin tickled the corners of his mouth. "Painting, perhaps."

Charlie dropped the controller and rolled over, sitting up with her legs crossed and facing him. "Fine, then I'll _paint_ myself gunning down the bastards while they run away with their stupid little arms. Is that better?"

"Only if you portray them more accurately than your game does. They failed to include the feathers."

Charlie huffed and blew air out from between her lips. "That's just a load of bull the head sciencey dudes are using to try and crush my generation's childhood. They were freakin' lizards, man!"

"With feathers," Cas reiterated. "And if my brother Balthazar is to be believed, they were quite soft."

Charlie's face went blank and she gaped at Cas before breaking into a nervous laugh. "I keep forgetting you're older than Methuselah."

"Much older."

"You look good for your age?" Charlie offered, unsure and awkward between giggles.

"I can't take credit for it, but thank you, I think."

Charlie dragged her hands over her face and patted some composure into her cheeks before sitting up straighter, looking at Cas with a more serious expression. "So… Cas. No- _Castiel_. I'm sorry! Or do you prefer Cas? What should I call you?"

"Cas is what those whom I consider to be a friend refer to me by, so you are welcome to use it as well, if it pleases you."

Charlie's mouth broke into a huge smile, but she tamped it down and shook her hands out. "Wow, okay. Friends with a guy who was an angel for like, most of forever. That's new. Awesome, but new." She cleared her throat. "Sorry! So, _Cas_. I know we only really just met the other day but since I've known Captain Bowlegs and Lieutenant Hair for a while now, and like I said, I read all the books… I mean, I probably know more about you than a person normally should and that's kinda _weird_ so I apologize, but it is what it is, so whatever. What I'm trying to say is that, well— no, scratch that, I'm not trying to _say_ anything. I just want to make sure that the boys aren't being dicks to you, are they? They're being cool about everything that's happened?"

Cas tucked his bookmark between the pages and set the book down next to him on the bed. "They're… _cool_, yes," he confirmed. "Great, actually."

"You sure? 'Cause I could smack a bitch if I gotta."

Cas laughed. "That won't be necessary. They are better to me than I deserve, so please don't hit them on my behalf."

"I won't," Charlie said. "But if it's for my _own_ benefit, can I hit them?"

"Certainly. I won't hold it against you. I know how difficult they can be at times."

"Especially Dean?"

"_Especially_ Dean," Cas stressed, letting his head fall back against the headboard.

Charlie smiled shyly and hesitated before asking: "You like him, don't you?"

"Of course. I like Sam as well, and you."

"No, I meant—" She breathed out through blushing cheeks. "With all the '_I gave up everything for you_' and the prolonged eye contact on every other page, and you guys were super adorable playing in the leaves and Dean turns into a big momma duck around you, I thought— never mind. I'm sorry, I'm a jerk. Forget it."

Cas studied Charlie for a long moment, his face serious. "You will not speak of this to him?"

"_God_, no," Charlie said, her forehead scrunching as she recoiled at the thought. "He'd flip."

Cas shifted his shoulders and sighed. "I love him," he said simply.

Charlie's face lit up and she made a sound not too unlike the one that the computer-generated velociraptors had made, just higher pitched and emphasized by giddy clapping. "Ah, yay! I knew it!"

Cas' cheeks darkened and he rubbed the back of his neck. "It is more of a relief to say it aloud than I had expected."

"Just imagine how good you'd feel if you told _him_," Charlie said encouragingly.

"No," Cas laughed the word without missing a beat, but his eyes were dark. "Absolutely not. I finally have a home here, I will not jeopardize that by mortifying him with my feelings."

"I don't think he'd be—"

"I do not wish to talk about this, Charlie," Cas said sternly, louder and more authoritative than he'd allowed himself to be since the Fall.

Charlie curled in on herself, spine arching back, looking down like a reprimanded child. "Sorry," she said, high-pitched and weak.

Cas inhaled a deep breath. "Don't be. I'm not upset with you," he said. "It is just… very difficult now, living with him, being in such close proximity to him on a continuous basis, in addition to everything else. He and Sam are so delicate with me. I understand it, but I am no less human than they are. It's frustrating."

"Do you… want me to talk to them about it?" Charlie offered, brushing her bangs from her eyes.

"No," Cas declined, "but there is something I need assistance with that I cannot ask of them, if you would be willing to help me."

"Sure thing. What is it?"

"You're not leaving until the day after tomorrow, correct?"

—

Sam and Dean had come back from the store that night with an assortment of power tools, some old fashioned hand-held gadgets, and all the various screws and nails and nuts and bolts they thought they might end up needing. Dean already had a good chunk of equipment from working on the Impala, but he reasoned it was better to have too much than not enough, and since they didn't see themselves vacating the bunker anytime soon, anything extra wouldn't go to waste. Everything they bought got shoved into a corner of the garage to be revisited after the room was cleaned out and they ordered some furniture.

Along with their spoils from the hardware store, Dean approached Cas later before they turned in for the night with a brand new sleeping bag— the kind that was all puffy insulation and meant for cold weather. Dean told the fallen angel that if he was going to be stubborn and insist on acting the martyr and sleep on the floor, he'd at least have to be warm. Cas accepted it and thanked Dean as he hugged the big squishy roll of polyester and cotton.

Dean found Cas the next morning in the library. Cas had taken one of the tabletop lamps and set it on the wood floor. The carelessly discarded book off to the side told Dean that Cas had fallen asleep reading in his sleeping bag. His bedding was piled off to the side, but his head still rested on Dean's pillow as he snored lightly.

There was a smile on Dean's face as he fell into his morning ritual and flicked on the coffee maker.

Later that morning just before noon, Cas and Charlie left the bunker together without a word, leaving behind two confused Winchesters.

The drive was just over an hour and a half— not bad for Kansas time, where it was starting to seem like it took at least three hours to get anywhere worth going from the bunker. A little over a hundred miles southeast found them in Salina outside of what Cas' Google research had discovered was the closest reputable tattoo parlor.

Charlie had been all for helping Cas sneak behind the brothers' backs. It made sense, really, the way Cas explained it. If Sam and Dean didn't want him hunting yet, what reason did they have to take him to get his anti-possession tattoo? To them it would just be one step closer to accepting the fact that inevitably they'd have to ease him into the life. He wasn't going to be passive and let them call all the shots. Getting his hunter's ink wasn't exactly a huge cry of independence, but he had to start somewhere.

Cas had already done his research, so when Charlie gave him the thumbs up, they set the plan into action. They reasoned that Charlie had better people skills so she was the one to make the call, and with a bit of sweet talking she was able to get them a two o'clock appointment the next day for a one 'Jimmy Novak.'

Having already gone under the needle once, Cas knew he needed identification. Luckily Jimmy's wallet had been in his dress slacks when Cas had possessed him, and he'd had the foresight to keep it as he threw out the expired credit cards and random store rewards cards. The license was also expired, but as long was he wasn't driving, it didn't seem to matter. It was certainly more believable than the FBI Badge Dean had given him.

Charlie parked and fed the meter and traced her fingers along the script name etched into the glass of the shop front before she yanked open the door, holding it open for Cas behind her. He followed her in, admiring the eclectic art painted on the walls.

A rail-thin young woman with choppy purple hair and a curve of silver studs in each ear looked up from an accounting ledger as they approached the front desk. She flashed them a white smile that stood out in contrast against her black sweater that probably covered a series of tattoos. She greeted them politely but mechanically— clearly they had a lot of people come through their shop— and Charlie gave her their appointment information.

Moments later a well-muscled man in a Led Zeppelin t-shirt and open black hoodie came out from the back room and introduced himself as Jack, their tattoo artist. Cas and Charlie each exchanged handshakes with him.

"So, if I remember correctly, we're doing custom work, right?" Jack asked, clapping his palms together.

"Yeah, I've got it on my phone." Charlie reached into her shoulder-bag and pulled out the device, swiping through her photos until she found the one of the design. They couldn't exactly ask Sam or Dean to yank down their neckline so they could snap a picture, so Cas had found the symbol in one of the books in the library and it worked just the same.

Jack eyed the design and clicked his tongue. "Oh, that should be fine. Could you text it to my e-mail address?" He pulled a business card from his pocket and passed it to Charlie. "That way I can print it and get it on the transfer paper quicker."

"Certainly, sir," Charlie chirped, and clicked away on her phone.

"So," Jack said, turning to Cas. "I'll take it you're Jimmy, then?"

"Yes," Cas said. It was truth enough for the time being.

"First tattoo?"

"No, I have one," Cas answered. He brushed aside his trench coat and lifted up his blue button-up and gray t-shirt to reveal the warding lines above his hip.

The tattoo artist whistled. "Nice text work," he said. "I don't recognize the language, though."

"It's Enochian," Cas explained, pulling the shirts back down over his skin. "Angelic."

"Time to balance out heaven with a pentagram, huh?" Jack snickered. "I like it. So, Jimmy, how big and where?"

"Three to four inches across, on my upper back just below my neck," Cas said, looking to Charlie who smiled and nodded encouragingly.

They had discussed the location at length on the drive from Lebanon. At first Cas was just going to go ahead and get it on his chest the same as the brothers, but when he had shown Charlie his angelic warding she had shot that down in a heartbeat. He already had one tattoo on that same side on his torso, she argued, so why not change it up a bit? Jimmy had long since gone on to heaven and the body was entirely Cas' now, so shouldn't he design it the way he wanted to? There was nothing that dictated he had to get it in exactly the same place as the brothers did. Charlie had suggested the base of his neck, and the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

A good chunk of an hour and a small stack of paperwork later, Cas liked it even more. He glanced over his bare shoulder into the mirror and admired the transfer design that Jack had mapped onto his skin. The curving flames reached up and out in all directions, stretching towards his muscled shoulders and almost tickling the small curl at the 'V' of his hairline.

Cas turned back to Jack and nodded. "Let's do this."

Given the option to either sit on a stool or lay on his stomach, Cas opted to remain upright. Charlie grabbed another stool and scooted over to sit right in front of him, sandwiching the fallen angel between herself and the tattoo artist.

Jack smoothed his hand over the design. "Just a heads up, there's a good chance this is going to hurt like a bitch. Bony areas like this tend to really suck."

Charlie reached up and ruffled Cas' hair with a grin. "Need me to hold your hand, angel-boy?"

"I'll be fine," Cas said for all to hear. Then, in a softer voice for Charlie: "Physical pain is nothing new."

Cas steeled himself as he heard the low buzz of the needle. It took it's first bite at the knob of his spine and pulled outward, digging black ink into thick skin.

Charlie leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Just think of how it'll be when it's done," she said softly, not quite a whisper. "The angels can't find you, the demons won't be able to jump your bones. That's about as free as free gets, right?"

Cas winced as the needle buzzed a deep pass over a prominent vertebra, but he managed a smirk for Charlie. "It would seem that way, yes."

—

_November 8th_

_It would seem that I have already gotten A & D ointment on the page before I even managed to start writing. These packets seem to have a mind of their own. Perhaps they are naturally attracted to the ink from the fountain pen. It's been less than a day and I can already sense that it will become a chore to properly care for my new tattoo without Sam or Dean noticing. Several sweatshirts I have completely cover the section that sticks up from my t-shirt, but it will have to be bandaged until the ink stops bleeding so it doesn't ruin my clothes, and each application of ointment is followed by a trip to the sink to wash my hands. I am sure they will figure it out eventually. I do not think that Sam will be bothered. I am more concerned about how Dean will react._

_It is amusing, though, that they believe Charlie and I spent the afternoon shopping. We stopped at a store on the way back to the bunker so that we could pick out something to use as proof for our story. She insisted on buying me a warmer coat for the winter as payment for using my room. It is black wool. I like it very much._

_Charlie left early this morning. I love Sam and Dean dearly and I do not believe I will ever care more for two souls than I do for them, but it is an interesting thought to know that I am capable of befriending someone beyond the battlefield. It feels quite human, making friends, having someone to confide in. She did not know me as I was so her only option was to treat me like a fellow human being. It is strange to say, but it makes me feel good about myself. I am thankful for that, for not feeling like a broken and hollow angel, but rather just a person. I am thankful for her honest friendship, for the lack of pretense. _

_I am getting there with Sam. Dean is trying, I know he is, but when he looks at me all I see is a tormented storm in his eyes. I cannot read it, but it weighs heavy on me. Charlie said that I am free now, but until I can look Dean in the eye and find acceptance there, I can never feel that I truly am. _

_He is difficult. For that, he is not getting his pillow back._

_Castiel_


	7. Olfactory Cue

Sam slept in that Monday morning. Most people wouldn't consider nine-thirty A.M. _late_, but in the younger Winchester's world it was practically unheard of these days. He preferred to be up and out the door and done with his errands before most regular folk rolled out of bed. It meant there were no lines to wait in, no passive aggressive parking lot stand-offs, and plenty of time to do whatever he pleased with the rest of his day. Dean may have been taking his sweet time settling into their mockery of domesticity, but unlike his brother, Sam had flirted with the lifestyle before and enjoyed it. Sam could fill a day with chores and books and research and not tire of it. Dean, on the other hand, was restless. Dean craved the hunt, needed some sort of purpose.

Dean needed more Pledge and paper towels and dust cloths for cleaning out the new guest room, and that's how Sam begrudgingly found himself riding shotgun on the way to the store that morning.

Sam was initially relieved that Dean didn't act like a petulant five year old this time around, but his brother's terse replies to small talk and the palpable haze of discontent that clung to him were worse.

"Okay, so what's eating you this morning, Dean?" Sam finally had to ask as they were half-way back to the bunker. The Impala kicked up small whirlwinds of crispy leaves as they rolled down the streets of Lebanon.

Dean turned and glared at Sam, and Sam was instantly reminded of something Cas had said when they were playing video games the other night: _"Dean, you cannot even keep your eyes on the road in a real car, how can you possibly be upset that you keep falling off the track in a fake one?"_

"You know I'm not a morning person," Dean grumbled in reply, palming the wheel as he made an over-embellished swooping right turn.

Sam huffed. "Yeah, well, something must have happened. You've been a real pain in the ass the past couple days."

"That's the thing," Dean said, jabbing the air with his right hand for emphasis. "_Nothing's_ happened. I've been fucking cleaning for like, two whole days. _Me_, cleaning. I'm bored, Sammy! It's like if I don't take a case soon I'm gonna go all Jack Nicholson up in this bitch."

"All play and no work makes Dean a dull boy?"

"Something like that," Dean murmured.

"Cas is doing a lot better," Sam said, and even he could hear the _hint hint nudge nudge_ in his tone.

Dean's seat belt scraped audibly against his leather jacket as he stiffened. "Yeah."

"He's been a huge help in the library," Sam continued. "Corrected a lot of information the Men of Letters had on angels, fixed up their catalog of Enochian symbols."

"Is that so?" Dean supplied the expected response.

"I don't even know why he's investing so much time reading Dad's journal since he already seems to know his stuff inside and out. The guy's a walking encyclopedia."

Dean rubbed the back of his neck with a restless hand before hooking it on the bottom of the wheel, propping his opposite elbow in the nook of the window. "You'd be monster Google too if you were _literally_ older than sin."

Sam couldn't help a chuckle. "Dean, what I'm trying to say is… well, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to start looking for a case. Just putting that out there."

Dean flicked his eyes over to Sam, then back to the road with a long sigh. "We'll see," he said.

"He's already a knives expert, and he's got the knowledge," Sam offered enthusiastically as they cruised into the garage. "Thanks to me, now we know he's quick on his feet."

"Yeah, thanks for the run-down of his dating profile Sammy, but I said _we'll see_."

Dean popped the trunk and the brothers got out of the front seat and shut the doors, the sound echoing in the roomy bay.

Sam wasn't going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

—

With Sam and Cas out running up and down the road in forty-degree weather like a couple of masochistic lunatics, Dean was left to his own devices. Cas had helped them unload the groceries and then he and Sam had laced up their blinding running shoes and took off. Dean was sorely tempted to curl up on his bed with his laptop and lose himself in a destructive Netflix spiral that would surely last all day, but if those health nuts were doing something productive, well, he couldn't just sit around and let them have the last word now, could he?

Considering the fifty years of dust and grime that had settled over the place, the new guest room was coming along better than Dean had expected. They hadn't gotten much further than unloading most of the shelves— books, mostly, anthologies and logbooks and the like. Sam had gushed over some of their newfound acquisitions while Dean couldn't care less, other than the fact that he supposed when it came to references it was always 'the more the merrier.'

The books had been appropriately filed away in the library, leaving behind empty shelves and bookcases. He cleaned off and polished one of the smaller ones, thinking one day he might stain it to really make it nice. For now, it would have to do.

Dean dragged the bookcase down the hall and into Cas' room. He nudged the shopping bags of second-hand library books away from the wall and pushed the big wooden thing into place. The room was mostly empty aside from the bed, a nightstand and a dresser, a few things here and there. The tip of Cas' angel blade poked out from underneath his pillow. Sam and Dean didn't have much, living on the road, but Cas barely had anything.

Dean took all of the books from the bags on the floor and sorted them onto the new shelves. He had no idea how Cas would want them organized, so he just clumped them together by author when there were multiple works. At least it was something. When he was done he crumpled up the bags and stuffed them into the humble little trash can and flicked the light off.

Finding himself back in the new guest room, Dean sat down on the floor cross-legged in front of one of the low cabinets he had yet to tackle. He pulled open the low doors and let out a long whistle as he scanned his eyes over the shelves packed with glass jars and other containers. The jars were all neatly labeled with white tags on twine strung around their necks, the lids of others neatly affixed with labels or identified with immaculate script.

_Hemlock. Butterfly wings. Fairy bones. Snake skin. Obsidian. Raven beak. Feline whiskers. Sediment from the River Nile. Salt. Angel feathers. Spider eggs. Griffin blood. Virgin hair clippings. Ectoplasm. Purgatory soil. Wormwood. Moon rocks. Powdered insect chitin. Iron filings. Thistle. Crushed Mammoth tusk. Moth wings._

Dean wondered why they bothered to keep a jar of salt with their ingredients since it wasn't exactly hard to come by, but whatever. He skimmed his fingers over the jar of dirt from Purgatory, feeling for whatever poor sap had been the one to take the sample. He took it from the shelf and popped open the sealed lid. He put his nose to the glass rim and let the scent invade his nostrils.

It was the same. It reeked of ground fungus and rotting leaves and blood, of pure primal fear and cold dried sweat.

Dean snapped the lid shut and hastily set it back on the shelf, but the olfactory trigger had already been pulled, the vivid memories rushing back.

The never-ending forest, damp and dark and cold. Benny wiping his blade on his shirt, transitioning too easily from decapitation to waxing poetic about his family's take on jambalaya. Cas crouched by the river, Dean's relief and thrill at finding him and _why isn't he hugging me back?_ Cas clutching Dean's hand and yanking him out of harm's way, spinning him around and stabbing the soulless thing that had been poised to kill them both. His false memory of letting Cas slip through his fingers and the guilt and misery that followed.

Dean dragged his hands over his face and sighed rough and ragged into his palms. Cas was a soldier, a warrior, a natural hunter in the physical sense. Dean wouldn't admit it to anyone but himself, but once he'd found Cas down in that heaven and hell forsaken place, Dean had gone into a tigerish, possessive and protective frame of mind. He'd found his angel, and he'd be damned if he lost him again. But the truth was that Cas saved Dean and Benny's asses just as often. Cas could hold his own, but Dean wanted to make sure nothing could harm him. He wanted to be the one to keep the angel safe, to watch over _him_ for a change.

Now that he and Sam and Charlie had dragged Cas out of the doldrums he'd settled into, Dean knew that with a little bit of training, Cas would be one hell of a hunter. He just couldn't stand to think of Cas, human Cas, getting hurt and none of them being able to do a damn thing about it. Cas was fragile flesh and bone now, and that scared the shit out of Dean.

Sooner or later he'd have to let it go.

Dean pulled out the sealed tray of angel feathers to distract himself. A year ago he would have laughed and assumed they were just bird plumage, but then good ole' Grandpa Winchester had stumbled into their lives with his crazy spell. The tray in the cabinet had dark orange feathers, almost red. He wondered whose wings they'd been plucked from.

Dean was about to open the container when he heard the telling slam of the bunker door and muffled yet slightly winded conversation. He heard the familiar gait of Cas' footsteps approaching.

"Hey, Cas," Dean called as Cas passed the room on the way to his own.

Cas looked surprised for a moment, his face red and hair glistening damp. He stopped and leaned against the door frame. "Hello Dean," he said, glancing down to where the hunter sat on the floor.

"Had a good run?" Dean asked.

"My stamina is increasing," Cas said in a pleased voice. "Though the cooler air is difficult on my throat."

Dean's eyebrow quirked. "Aren't you supposed to breath through your nose?"

"Yes, but it doesn't always seem to work out that way," Cas admitted. He nodded towards the low cabinet. "More supplies for the laboratory?"

"Yeah," Dean said. He angled the tray of deep orange feathers towards Cas. "Friend of yours?"

Cas stepped into the room and crouched low next to Dean. He slid a finger down the side of the tray and hummed low in his throat. "Samael. Not a friend, no, but no enemy either."

"He a dick like most of your brothers?" Dean asked.

"I did not know him well. Perhaps you would be able to find information in the library if you are truly curious."

"Huh," Dean murmured. "Maybe."

Cas turned his head and looked over the contents of the cabinet. Dean was probably imagining it, but he thought he saw Cas' eyes darken as they passed over the jar of soil. A second later they were soft and blue and bookended with kind crinkles that Dean had secretly come to cherish.

"Would you like help bringing these upstairs?" Cas offered. "It would require many trips for one person."

Dean blinked at the fallen angel, eyes widening the slightest bit. "Um, sure, yeah. You're not too beat from chasing Sam up and down the road?"

"My body is more accustomed to running than yours is, Dean. It is not as incapacitating as you believe it to be."

"Suit yourself," Dean said. He uncrossed his legs and rocked back on his haunches, pushing up on his knees until standing.

They gradually transported the ingredients up to the shelves of the laboratory, slotting them in where they fit. Sam commented in passing them on the stairs that they'd better be putting them in alphabetical order, but Dean laughed it off and told Sam he could sort it himself if he wanted to. They brought them up at a maximum of two per person at a time to minimize any chances of dropping something. Some of the contents of those jars were priceless, and who knows what sort of trouble could snowball from spilling and losing track of some of those ingredients.

Returning from the last trip to the lab, Dean clapped his hands together and exhaled forcefully as he looked out over the room filled with empty shelves and cabinets.

"Now we just gotta haul all this crap out of here and then we can really start getting this place in order."

Cas surveyed the room, face flushed from the continuous up and down and up and down from the guest room to the lab. "What is it you plan to do with all of the furniture?" he asked.

"Shove it into one of the other rooms we never used? I don't know. I was thinking I could repurpose some of it, saw 'em up, make some shelves to hang up. Save the rest for scrap. I was just going to shove everything into the hall and deal with it later."

"We might as well start, then," Cas said.

It wasn't long into dragging the first massive cabinet out into the hallway that they discovered that the Men of Letters really didn't screw around with their furniture selections. The thing was _heavy_. Once they got it down to the end of the hall, Dean was breathing heavy and sweat was beading along his hairline. He stripped off his jacket as they walked back to the guest room.

"Dude, you look like you're melting," Dean said to Cas. "Spare yourself. Take off your sweatshirt."

"I'm fine, Dean," Cas said.

"There's no way you haven't figured out the whole body temperature thing yet. Do yourself a favor, man."

Cas glared at Dean, though the hunter couldn't fathom why, but the fallen angel complied. He pulled his thick hooded sweatshirt over his head and tossed it on top of the short cabinet they had just emptied. He wore a plain white t-shirt underneath that hugged his muscled torso with its translucent fabric, spotted with sweat.

Cas passed in front of Dean with a sudden smothering air about him and grabbed at the edge of a towering bookshelf, dislodging it from where it had sat for the last half of a century.

Dean stilled as his eyes landed on the black lick of flame that reached up from under Cas' shirt's collar.

"Cas," Dean breathed the name, low and unhinged and shaking. He didn't even know what he was feeling, but it hit him hard.

The tension that clouded around the fallen angel sucked back into it's host and froze him in place, hands still gripped around the edges of the bookshelf.

Dean stepped closer, unable to tear his eyes away from the sharp lines and waves that he could clearly identify through the fabric. Cas had gone behind his back and gotten the anti-possession tattoo. Something in his chest twisted wrongly, something else bristled in fear.

"You weren't going to tell me, were you?" Dean asked quietly.

"No," Cas admitted. "I knew you would find out."

"Show me."

Cas sucked in a shaky breath and obeyed. He pulled the t-shirt over his head and gripped it tight as he held his arms stiff at his sides, his naked back bared to Dean.

Dean's breath hitched and his feet moved forward of their own accord. He couldn't take his eyes off of the familiar symbol that he saw every morning when he looked in the mirror, every time he glanced down at his own chest. Now it sat nestled between Cas' broad and defined shoulder blades, fresh ink still vibrant and stunning.

"You asked Charlie," Dean said. It was not a question. "You wanted her with you instead of me."

"You would not have taken me. I knew you wouldn't wish for me to get it."

"But you wanted to."

"Yes," Cas said with conviction. "I cannot say that I apologize, because I am not sorry."

Dean's hand moved without his permission, his fingers tracing feather-light across the raw skin. Cas' body was hot to the touch. "I thought you knew me better than that," Dean whispered.

Cas turned his head ever so slightly, glancing over his shoulder at Dean. He said nothing, only watched.

Dean drew a fingertip along the lines of the endless knot at the center of the tattoo. "I'm not thrilled about throwing you back into the fire, believe me, I'm not, but Cas… If there's something you want, anything I can do to help you, hell, even just make you a bit more _okay_ with all the shit that's happened— make you _happy_. You gotta know by now, man, I'll move heaven or earth or _wherever_ the fuck I gotta move to make it happen. We clear?"

Cas held his stare and replied a slow, deep, "Yes, Dean. We're clear."

Dean pulled his hand away and took a step back. "Good. Now I'm gonna have to deal with Charlie lording it over my head that she took you for your first tattoo, so thanks for that," he said sarcastically.

"But she didn't," Cas protested.

"Come again?"

"It's not my first."

"You're kidding me." Dean's voice fell along with his face.

Cas turned around and motioned toward his side with the hand holding his shirt. "Angel warding. It's similar to what I carved into your ribs."

Dean's eyes fixed on the Enochian above Cas' angular hipbone, poking out above the band of his sweatpants. "When the hell did that happen?"

"On my way back here after I Fell," Cas replied. "It was a necessity. They were hunting me."

Dean dragged his eyes away from the tattoo. "Put your shirt on," he said as he turned to grab the sweatshirt on the cabinet at the front of the room.

Cas pulled the white t-shirt over his head. "You don't like it," he said.

"I do," Dean said, shoving the sweatshirt at Cas. He knew that he was blushing but he hoped that the fallen angel either couldn't tell or didn't understand why. "Ink… suits you. Just don't want you getting cold."

Dean quickly made for the doorway, but hesitated at the threshold. He turned as Cas was trying to fight his way into the sleeves of the sweatshirt. Cas' head popped through the hole and the hood flopped lightly on his upper back.

"Tomorrow, you and me. The firing range," Dean said. "It's about time I taught you how to shoot."

—

_November 11th_

_The tattoo secret has been exposed quicker than I had thought it would. I thoroughly expected Dean to be upset with me, and perhaps he was, but he does have a habit of surprising me just when I believe I have him figured out. His fingers on the new tattoo stung, but Father, forgive me, I did not want him to stop. It is intoxicating to hear kind words from a loved one, to feel their touch, freely given. To feel such fearsome affection for another as they voice the lengths to which they would go for you. _

_I am now a man of little faith, Father, but this I pray: Please let his words be truth. _

_It would also appear that I have now mysteriously obtained a bookcase. As it appeared while Sam and I were out, I have no question as to the source of it's appearance, but as I had no intention of telling him about my tattoo, I can only assume he has no intention of mentioning the gift. I cannot properly thank him because of this, so I will have to do it here for myself._

_Thank you, Dean. I appreciate you sorting the books as well. I believe that Sam would be jealous._

_Castiel_


	8. Target Practice

A/N:

I've only ever fired a gun once- most of this is research, and I tried to keep the info on a need-to-be-there basis because of it. Many thanks to the supernatural wiki for the list of the boys' pistols. Also, a nod to Torchwood- the end of this chapter is lovingly inspired by the scene where Jack gives Gwen a firearms tutorial.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>"Hey, I haven't seen the printer in a few weeks. Where's it at?"<p>

Sam looked up from his plate of egg whites and turkey sausage to find Dean peeking his head into the kitchen, looking quite like he was up to something, though what sort of trouble his brother could get into with a discount inkjet, Sam had no idea.

"It's already refurbished to begin with, Dean. You'll break it."

"I won't break it, now where's the damn printer?"

Sam hoped that his completely unamused frown would dissuade Dean, but his brother's persistence paid off, earning Dean a sigh of defeat. "Under my bed, near the foot. I put it back in the box after last time."

Last time, Dean had tried to print out some conflicting lore on skinwalkers that some late night digging had unearthed. The printer jammed. Sam was almost too late to discover that Dean faced uncooperative technology much like he faced any other foe: with brute force and colorful profanity. So yeah, maybe one of the side panels was broken and it whined like the most obnoxious part of a siren when it started up, but it still printed. Until the day it stopped doing that, Sam figured it was still good.

Dean grinned. "Thanks." He disappeared back behind the wall he had popped out from.

_Scampered_. Dean legitimately _scampered_ away, like an excited little boy at Christmas. Sam hoped his brother had shoes on, otherwise the floors he'd WetJetted this morning would cause Dean and his socks to Risky Business all the way into the barricade of furniture at the end of the hallway.

Sam wanted to mentally shake his fist at Dean's stunted technological skills, but he was too busy smiling around a mouth full of eggs. They had _normal_ people things like a Swiffer and a desktop printer and that was more than he'd ever allowed himself to really hope for for the two of them.

Dean was an idiot, but things were somehow managing to shape up anyway.

—

The laugh was worth it.

Dean led Cas into the shooting range, ushering the fallen angel through the door before him. He flicked the stiff light switch and the overhead lamps sputtered on, blinking awake and powering up inside the wire cages that confined them. The ventilation system kicked in, generating a low thrum that seemed to make the air around them tremble.

Cas stepped up to the center firing point and gave an unexpected laugh, turning back towards Dean with his hand up over his mouth and those stupid adorable crinkles around his eyes, dimples in his grinning cheeks.

_Yeah_, Dean thought, _totally worth it_.

"I highly doubt this is standard practice," Cas said as Dean approached.

Dean patted Cas on the shoulder and admired his handiwork at the back end of the range. Taped to each of the three target heads were three different print-outs of Dick Roman's face, posturing and faux-political and positively ridiculous. In one of them he was winking. Dean had drawn an eye patch on that one.

"What, you don't want to shoot Dick in the face?" Dean asked.

Cas glanced back to the targets, then over to Dean at his side. He tried to keep a straight face but broke into a reluctant smile. "If my instructor approves, I do believe I would enjoy shooting Dick in the face."

"Then it's settled," Dean said, not bothering to try and hide the fact that he was smiling right back at Cas.

What Dean had originally wanted to do was slap Metatron's face up on the targets to give Cas the opportunity to blow off some steam, but his search had yielded nothing but scans of religious paintings and _that's_ no fun. Why he thought he might come across the face of that sniveling bookworm of a recluse he had no idea, but the internet was a constant source of surprise so he'd figured it was worth a try. His next thought had been Crowley, who Dean was almost positive he could track down photos of. Wasn't his vessel some big shot publisher or something like that? It didn't matter. Dean hated to admit it, but he thought he'd actually feel kind of bad seeing Crowley take a bullet between the eyes, no matter how often the subject came up in conversation.

Dick was the safest choice. The leviathans had been a few years ago now, and Dick himself was just ridiculous enough that it brought up the topic without putting any weight on it, and in fact showed Cas that it was water so far under the bridge that they could make light of it now. Not to mention, popular media icon that he was, Dick pics were all over the web for Dean to choose from.

Dean cleared his throat and reached into his back pocket, pulling out a weathered hand-gun with an ivory grip and intricate engravings on the slide. He fondly ran his fingers along the grooves, slow and respectful of the deadly power such a small object held. Dean angled the nickle-plated gun toward Cas and showed him the empty firing chamber to set him at ease. He handed the pistol handle-first to Cas who took it with interest, gingerly turning it over in his hands.

"That's the gun I learned how to shoot with, so I figure it's a good place to start," Dean explained. "Dad's old M1911A1. Said he had a similar one back in the war and was itching to get his hands on a civilian make almost as soon as he got foot back on American soil. The thing's seen better days, but it's never let me down."

Cas, too, admired the ornate detail of the gun. "Such detail for an instrument of death," he commented.

"What, you wouldn't spruce up your angel blade if you could?" Dean asked.

Cas considered it a moment before passing the gun back to Dean. "I do not see a reason to. It is simple and elegant, much like death itself."

"Yeah, well, guns ain't simple. I know a lot of technique goes into using a blade, but when it comes down to it, a beginner could pick up the thing and stab something and _hooray_, it's dead. Not so much here."

Dean crouched down and reached under the counter to grab two pairs of protective eyeglasses. He slid one pair on himself and passed the other to Cas who did the same. Dean grabbed a couple sets of big black plastic ear muffs and pushed up to standing. Cas was looking at him curiously from behind those yellow-tinged lenses. Dean let one pair of ear muffs slide down his arm and horseshoe around his elbow as he stretched out the other pair and set them on Cas' head, brushing dark hair back to let the padding encompass his ears.

"Can you still hear me?" Dean asked.

"Yes, I can," Cas said. He frowned and drew his head back at the muffled, distant sound of his own voice. "Dean, this is strange."

"Necessary precautions, man," Dean explained, donning his own ear muffs. "I normally don't bother if I'm only shooting off a round or two, but we're gonna be in here for a while."

"I understand," Cas said.

Dean slipped his hand back under the counter and withdrew a clip which he loaded into the pistol. He cocked the slide, dropping a round into the chamber. "I'll walk you through everything. Just watch for now."

Dean moved slow and deliberate so that Cas had the opportunity to study his movements. He fell easily into his stance, feet shoulder-width apart, left foot leading. He leaned forward over bent knees, holding the pistol out in front of him with nearly-straight arms and lining his eyes up along the sights. He cycled through a few inhales and exhales before slipping his finger around the trigger and firing at the bottom of a breath.

The bullet caught the middle Dick Roman in his chest, just shy of where a heart would have been.

Dean removed the clip from the gun and pulled the slide back to peer down the chamber, making sure it was completely unloaded. He set the clip down on top of the counter and turned to Cas.

"Your turn."

Cas visibly swallowed, but stepped forward and accepted the pistol as Dean passed it to him again.

"No need to be nervous, Cas. It's not like you've never fired a gun before, you just didn't know what you were doing, even though you did save Sam's ass. Our old sawed-offs are a whole different animal. Handguns are more like what we use on the regular."

Dean moved so that Cas could step up to the firing point. "How's your eyesight, by the way?" he asked.

Cas turned and looked at him with that too-familiar furrowed brow. Dean wondered if this is how adults felt when their kids kept making silly faces and told them that if they kept doing it they'd get stuck that way. Dean had been seeing that face for six years now. Angel or not, Castiel was no stranger to confusion.

"I can see just fine," Cas replied. "There are certain aspects of this world I can no longer perceive with this limited body, but I imagine for human purposes my vision is satisfactory."

"Jimmy didn't have to wear glasses or anything?"

"No, but he had some unusual markings and scarring on his eyes. I believe he must have had corrective surgery."

Dean snorted. "Lasik?"

"If that is what it is called," Castiel said. "It does not matter. When I had intended to return his body, I cured all of it's ailments, including any defects in eyesight. It is a simple courtesy."

"So you lucked out, huh? Clean as a whistle for the new tenant. Unless he's still in there?"

Castiel frowned a bit, but his mouth shifted into something like a smile. "Jimmy's soul was delivered to heaven when Raphael killed me. This body has been mine for quite some time."

Dean offered a curt hum in reply, not knowing what he could really say as a response to that. It had been a question that scratched at his mind from time to time, but he'd never found an appropriate moment to bring it up. It wasn't exactly polite conversation. _Hey, remember that poor bastard you possessed and his family that you inadvertently ripped to shreds? Yeah, are you two sharing a meat suit or is it single-occupancy only now? _

It was good to know that Cas was just Cas, though, and with that shiny new tattoo he got, he'd never be anybody else.

Dean was definitely on board with that.

"Alright, we don't have to worry about your sight, mister eagle eyes, but are you a lefty or a righty?"

There was that frown again, an eyebrow lifting into Cas' forehead.

"Which hand do you write with?" Dean clarified.

"My right," Cas answered.

"Dork," Dean muttered under his breath. He knew that Cas didn't hear it through the thick padding of his ear muffs.

Dean guided Cas through the basics of handling the gun in his dominant hand, of how to hold it, how to _never ever ever_ put his finger on the trigger unless he was about to fire, of how to position his thumbs so that the hammer wouldn't jump back and bite him. He guided Cas into the same stance he'd used earlier, adjusting with a pull of an elbow here, a tap there to instruct him to reposition his feet. Once Cas had gotten it right, Dean made him shake it out and relax, then assume the position again. They did this several times until Dean was satisfied with Cas' basic firing stance.

Dean instructed Cas on how to load and reload the gun, how to adjust the safety. As with the stance, Dean made him go through the motions of loading and unloading the gun over and over until the motion was smooth and fluid. At last, Dean had Cas leave the clip in and instructed him to get into position to shoot.

Cas' hands held tight around the ivory grips, and at Dean's command, he lined up the sights and squinted his left eye. Cas took a deep breath as he slipped his finger around the trigger and squeezed.

The shot clipped the center target's shoulder.

"Not bad!" Dean cheered. He made to clap Cas on the shoulder, but thought better of possibly starling a man holding a gun and barely knew how to use it. Still, Cas turned to him with a grin splitting his face in two, glowing under the praise.

Dean guided him through several clips worth of shots, getting Cas comfortable with the weapon and giving him pointers as they went. They'd clearly have to work on Cas' aim, but he picked up on the motions and mechanics of it like a natural. _Once a soldier always a soldier_, Dean thought, no matter what the battlefield. It was difficult at first, watching Cas with a gun in his hands. It brought back unwanted memories of 2014 and the end of the world, of Cas with a shotgun slung over his shoulder as he popped narcotics into his scruffy face. This wasn't that Cas, though. The years had passed but Cas hadn't strayed down that path. Dean wouldn't let him. This Cas had Fallen, had his finger on the trigger all the same, but Dean would never let things go to that dark place.

Dean watched the focused gleam in Cas' eye, the way his nose twitched when the recoil of the gun shook his body. That Croatoan thing had been what- August 2014? Here it was, the middle of November the year before. It pulled at something buried deep in Dean's chest to remember how that Cas had beamed up at him, eyes glazed over and said, _"What? I like past you,"_ as if what Dean had become was something so far beyond Cas' admiration that it couldn't even be said he was liked anymore. They weren't still on that road anymore, were they? They couldn't be. Lucifer was out of the picture, Metatron had shaken things up and that old road was buried underneath the resultant rubble. But all roads lead to the same place if you study the map hard enough.

They'd never end up there, Dean swore to himself. Not some Croatoan base camp, not the end of days, not some sick world where he looks into Cas' eyes and finds them empty, finds that they look at Dean and no longer see the Righteous Man, but some hollow angry thing with nothing worth saving.

Dean reached out and adjusted the way Cas was holding his shoulders, just because he needed a reason to touch him.

He'd changed. They both had. But the Cas next to him in those stupid yellow goggles was _his_ Cas, the same Cas that had pulled him from the pit, not that addict shell in Zachariah's play. They could never be the same. If they were, that meant—

Well, it meant that they'd lose this. This _bond_ that was more _profound_ than any other connection Dean had ever shared with anyone. It had sounded ridiculous when Cas had first said it, but there was no denying that it was an accurate description. If this Cas ever became that other version of himself, it meant that somehow, somewhere down the line, Dean fucked up. That something cracked and the bond was severed and Dean stopped caring, and that was so painful and impossible to wrap his head around because Dean couldn't even begin to imagine a world where he didn't care for Cas with everything he had.

It couldn't crack. They weren't delicate.

Cas fired off the last round in the clip, catching the target in the neck. Dean put himself more clearly in Cas' peripheral vision and held his hand out. Cas flicked on the safety and passed the gun to Dean.

"Having fun there?" Dean asked, smiling.

"Weapons are not meant for fun, Dean, but yes, I am enjoying myself."

Dean chuckled and loaded a new clip into the pistol. "You're doing pretty good for your first day. We just have to work on your aim."

Dean placed the gun back in Cas' hand, safety on, lowered towards the ground and away. The possessive edge that had crept into Dean's mind thrilled at the touch, making him fight to keep from shaking. He put his hands on the fallen angel's sturdy shoulders, shifting him on his feet so they were both facing the wall, sideways to the target. Dean's chest brushed up against Cas' back. One of Dean's hands fell to Cas' hip, coaxing it back towards him so that his body was perfectly perpendicular to the target. If Dean forgot to take his hand away, well, Cas didn't say anything about it either.

"It's good to practice in different stances. You never really know how you'll need to shoot when you're out in the field, so it's good to change it up," Dean explained. "Some people like to shoot at an angle like this so their chest isn't so exposed, but if you get shot in your side, there's important shit in there too, so it's all a matter of preference."

Dean moved his hand from Cas' shoulder and gently brushed at a tuft of hair that had caught under the ear muff, freeing it and smoothing it back into place. He reached down and placed his hand over Cas' around the gun.

"Lift your arm straight out, slowly, in line with your body. Turn your head and look down your arm along the sights."

Cas moved as Dean spoke until he was staring down the length of their arms and the gun, his face towards the target and so close that Dean thought perhaps the fallen angel could feel him breathing. Dean lifted his hand from Cas' to remove the safety and cock the slide. He let his hand fall to Cas' other hip as he leaned in and said soft and low:

_"Fire."_

Dean realized after the word had left his mouth that there was no way Cas had heard him, but the fallen angel pulled the trigger just the same. Maybe Cas had felt the word rumble through Dean's chest against his back. The thought burrowed into his veins and seeped into his blood and flared.

Dean drew back from Cas, tearing hands from hips, and stepped up to the counter. The shot had landed right in the middle of Dick's forehead. He drummed his hands on the counter and laughed, looking back at Cas with a proud grin.

"Some teamwork, huh?"

—

_November 12th_

_I am not as good with words as some of the authors I am discovering have proved themselves to me. I have found myself speechless. I am not sad yet there are tears burning behind my eyes. Thousands of words are racing through my mind, so many things I could never say. I feel the words more than think them. By the time they reach my brain, words are insufficient. These thoughts are so loud, crossing and overlapping and fighting for attention. I had expected humanity to be quiet without the voices of my brethren, but I had forgotten just how noisy a soul could be. But words don't truly matter if they cannot be spoken. Why fret over what to say if the sentiment should never be uttered?_

_I have just finished a novel. Of all the captivating things it had to offer, even regarding angels, the following passage resonates most strongly:_

_"He felt her heart beating against his chest. The moment began to transmute, and he wondered if there was something he should do. He wondered if he should kiss her. He wondered if he wanted to kiss her, and he realized that he truly didn't know." _

_But this journal of mine is not meant for such thoughts. It is meant for gratitude._

_I am grateful that soon I will be able to assist the Winchesters on their hunts. It will be a most welcome distraction. _

_I am grateful that this day is over, that in the morning I will awake and remember that my affections are not returned and are not welcome. Then I will have the sense of mind to remember that I have plenty else to be thankful for._

_But oh, it is difficult to give thanks when I can think of little else besides how the thing I want the most will never be mine._

_Castiel_

* * *

><p>AN:

FYI, the novel referenced is Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

ALSO I had originally intended for this to be finished by Thanksgiving, but clearly that's not happening, so if I don't get the next section up before then, may all who celebrate have a great holiday, and may everyone else have an extra-fantastic Thursday.


	9. Promises

Dean sat in the backseat of the Impala with his back to the door, knees drawn up with his boots flat on the seat. He stared at the cell phone in his right hand, the fingers of his left tangled restless in his hair. His pulse was a thick fast bass pounding in his chest and throbbing in his ears.

He was in the car in the dark garage at one thirty in the morning, but the worry of being overheard still clawed at his already frayed nerves.

Forcing that all back down into the pit of his stomach to churn, Dean swiped his thumb across the screen to unlock the phone and tapped the little green handset next to Charlie's grinning face.

It rang once, twice, and abruptly disconnected. Dean tried it again only to receive the same result after the first ring.

Apparently the girl didn't believe in voicemail.

Dean stared at the phone and watched the bright screen fade, then go black. He tried to reason it as a sign, a reason to tuck this stupid, stupid idea back into the darkest corner of his mind that was decorated with cobwebs as old and intricate as antique lace.

The phone vibrated in his hand and he saw a text message pop up center screen.

_(1:33AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>you are aware of what time it is, correct? some of us require more than a cat nap to function properly<em>

Dean stared at the text for a long minute before accepting defeat.

_(1:34AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>you cant convince me you were actually asleep<em>

_(1:35AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>irrelevant, whats up<em>

_(1:35AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>why didnt you pick up when i called?<em>

_(1:36AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>sierra's asleep. I dare not wake the dragon from its slumber.<em>

_(1:36AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>she snores like one too :(<em>

_(1:36AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>you hit ignore? I'm hurt <em>

_(1:37AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>get over it, winchester. <em>

_(1:37AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>I need to talk to you. like actually talk. Its important.<em>

_(1:37AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>can't it wait until tomorrow? I'm working. <em>

_(1:38AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>on what? Gold farming for your new set of armor?<em>

_(1:38AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>freelance web design, thank you very much<em>

_(1:39AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>how honorable of you<em>

_(1:39AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>shut your face. <em>

_(1:39AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>just call me when you can<em>

_(1:41AM, Nov 15) Charlie:  
>fine. On a scale of 1-10 how socially unacceptable is this call going to be? Can I go downstairs to the bar or are we going to be talking witchcrafty voodoo demon ghosts?<em>

_(1:42AM, Nov 15) Dean:  
>probably a 2. youll live.<em>

A reply never came. Dean stared at the dark screen, his eyes not even focusing. His foot began a nervous bounce and he let his head fall back against the Impala's side window. He'd have to Windex it tomorrow to get his scalp oils off the glass.

A few minutes later, _Don't Fear the Reaper_ began playing from the little device. Dean watched the little green icon on the screen vibrate excitedly as he inhaled with purpose, exhaling as he swiped his thumb and accepted the call.

"Hey Charlie."

_"So, first thing's first before the bartender gets here. Just how strong is my drink going to need to be for this? You're not dying are you?"_

"No, I'm not dying. Just… have something good for me, will you?"

_"Kamikazes aren't really your speed, are they?"_

"Whatever floats your boat. I ain't judging."

Dean could hear Charlie's muffled voice as she spurted out her order to the bartender. It sounded like she was holding the phone to her chest or in her lap or something.

_"Alright, spill the beans. What's going on?"_

"Nothing's going on, I just… well. Charlie, you know you're, um… you're like a sister to me, right?"

There was a pause on the line.

_"You're sure you're not dying? 'Cause this sure sounds like the speech of a dying man."_

"I'm fine, really. Not dying. Totally not dying. There's just something I need to ask you."

_"Fire away, soldier."_

Dean slid his hand down his face. No backing out now.

"How did you know?"

_"About?"_

"About, you know. Girls."

_"Holy shit."_

"Charlie—"

_"Dean Winchester, are you saying what I think you're saying?"_

"I don't know! That's why I called you!"

_"Okay. Alright… wow. Okay, well, you know this isn't as big a deal as you think it is, right?_

"If it's not a big deal, why'd you say 'holy shit?'"

_"You caught me off guard, that's all. Took me by surprise. I mean, it's not really surprising but, you know—"_

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

_"Hey, don't you raise your voice at me, mister. You're the one that wanted to talk, remember?"_

"Yeah, alright… So, is it that obvious?"

_"Is what obvious? You're gonna have to be more specific here, Dean. I'm not about to go and put words in your mouth, not with this."_

"You think I'm gay, don't you?"

_"Do you?"_

"No! I like girls, Charlie."

_"So what? Girls do it for you. Big deal. But we've also already established that you'd swap teams for Doctor Sexy, so let's be honest. You're not perfectly straight. Nobody is."_

"Easy for you to say."

_"You think it was easy for me? It's not easy for anyone. I grew up wondering what the big deal was with all my friends talking about boys and crushes and ooooh Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, and you know what? There was never any question for me. I never liked boys. End of story. I played along with all the girl talk because that was what was expected, but it wasn't me. I was the dweeb with braces in love with her best friend. I went on awkward dates with guys just to keep up appearances until one day I stopped and realized that I didn't give a damn about what other people thought. My family was gone and the only person judging me was myself. So I put myself out there— the real me— and it was the scariest thing I've ever done, but it was worth it. It's so worth it, Dean."_

"It… it's not guys. I mean, yeah, I won't lie, I've window-shopped, all 'look don't touch,' but it's never been guys. Not like this."

_"It's just 'guy' then, isn't it?"_

"Yeah."

_"A guy with big blue eyes and rather impressive back muscles, if I do say so myself."_

"I would ask how you know that, but I already found out."

_"I would ask why you didn't fight that comment, but you've sort of already told me, haven't you?"_

"Shut up."

_"Never. Please tell me you went easy on him. He was really worried about how you'd react."_

"What do you think I am, some kind of douchebag? Of course I did… I started training him in the shooting range the other day."

_"Way to take the high road. I'm impressed."_

"He seemed so… I don't know. Tense. Not afraid, but something close."

_"He's trying, Dean. He's got a lot on his plate right now."_

"Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know. You don't have to remind me."

_"No, I don't, but I will say this: Cas is a good guy. Try not to make things harder for him than they already are, alright? Do me a favor and just talk to him. Just sit down and really talk to him, okay? He won't ask, but he really needs you right now."_

"Did he say that?"

_"More or less. Context clues."_

"Yeah, that's not helpful."

_"Isn't it though? You care about him, don't you?"_

"You know that."

_"And you want to kiss his big stupid face?"_

"Whoa, I did not say I—"

_"Come on, you don't need to. Am I right?"_

"I— Um… Yeah, I guess so, but—"

_"I KNEW IT!"_

"Are you sure that's your first drink?"

_"I had some wine upstairs before, but that is totally not the point. You know what you want, man, so go get it!"_

"I can't!"

_"Why not?"_

"Because he's Cas!"

_"And?"_

"And he's only been a person for like, a couple months."

_"Mere technicality! Now you're just making excuses."_

"What? It's true."

_"Please, like you can convince me you wouldn't have been up for some freaky feather action before."_

"Jesus Christ, Charlie!"

_"Just kidding! Or am I? I don't even know. Look, I don't know how he feels. Even if I did I wouldn't tell you since you should figure it out for yourself. But the way he talks about you, the way he looks at you… Hope is not lost."_

"You think so?"

_"I do. And I know you. You wouldn't have asked unless you thought so too."_

"I guess."

_"I believe in you, young Padawan. Just do yourself a favor and don't over think all the dumb labels you're giving yourself, that you think other people are giving you, okay? There's no reason to freak out because you like someone with the same sexybits as you. Sure, take your time to wrap your own head around it, because yeah, it's new, but don't you dare let that stop you from being happy. Who you're with doesn't define who you are. It's so Lifetime, I know, but it's some important shit, so remember it. I'd better see some progress when I come back down there for Thanksgiving."_

"We'll see about that. I can't make any promises."

_"Then I hereby reserve the right to make tasteless 'touched by an angel' jokes if I don't at least see some gratuitous hand-holding action."_

"I guess I'll have to try my best to deliver, then, huh?"

_"You bet, Winchester."_

"Hey Charlie?"

_"Yup?"_

"Thanks. Like… really. Thank you. I mean it."

_"I know you do, but you're welcome anyway. Now go be happy."_

"That's a vague order if I've ever heard one."

_"You know what I meant."_

"I thought the Queen of Moons would give more badass commands than that."

_"Go to bed, Dean."_

"Never."

_"It's almost two thirty in the morning, you asshat."_

"Nah, I'll pass."

_"I'll call Sam."_

"Jeez, fine, your majesty."

_"Tell Cas I say hi."_

"Will do."

_"I mean it, Dean. Go be happy. Promise me."_

"You know what? For once I think I might actually try."

—

Dean hadn't had a bedtime since he was four years old. He certainly wasn't going to start now at the tipsy behest of a voice on the phone originating the next state over, hours away.

He needed air. Cold, biting November air so harsh it would make his eyes water. He wanted it to turn his ears pink and numb his hands, the skin there already cracking. He wanted the wind to cool his burning cheeks and make them blush from the sting, not from the tumultuous hive of thoughts his brain had become.

Perched on the rungs of the wrought-iron ladder, Dean unlocked and swung open the latch in the ceiling and had to nearly throw himself over the metal contraption and onto the stone roof. He closed it after clambering out, lowering the door back down without letting it slam. The bedrooms were two floors directly below them and he didn't want to take the chance of waking up Sam and Cas.

The air wasn't as unforgiving as he had hoped for. For sure, it was brisk and if he didn't have his jacket, he'd be cold. Not freezing, but cold enough that he'd have to deal with those annoying little cold shivers that seemed to zap through him without warning and make him twitch from the shock of it. With the warm canvas insulating his arms and chest, though, it seemed like he'd actually be quite comfortable.

The night air embraced Dean instead of punishing him. Charlie had essentially absolved him of the bulk of his inherent fears and reservations that had been slowly dripping out of his subconscious over the years, but finally had the cork yanked out with every single goddamn moment he spent with Cas these past couple weeks. It was like his mind was screaming instinct to drown out logic, crying self-defeat when really all the world seemed to be doing was telling him that things for once really were okay.

He wasn't used to things being okay. Not for the first time, he wondered if that wasn't normal.

Dean brushed his knees off and lifted his head to take in the blinking starscape, but a pair of blue eyes was watching him.

"Oh! Hey Cas," Dean blurted in surprise.

Cas sat cross-legged near the ledge, head turned back over his shoulder. Dean's body instantly flared with panic, mind leaping to the worst possible conclusion at seeing Cas perched near the edge of the roof, but no, that wasn't it, it couldn't be— Cas had been doing better and there was a kind, peaceful light in the fallen angel's eyes as the corner of his mouth shifted in a half-smile.

"Hello, Dean."

Cas turned his attention back to the scene before him. Trees blanketed the view, some lower than the roof, some poking out higher. They reached toward the heavens that stretched above them, dark and light and infinite.

Dean fisted his hands and stuffed them into his jacket pockets. It wasn't freezing, but a little warmth was a welcome treat once he admitted to himself that yeah, it was a bit nippy out. His feet carried him forward, unable to deny the magnetic pull that the dark haired man held over him. Beneath the blanket of autumn stars at such an unholy hour of morning it was easy to think of it as gravity, that Cas had somehow become the guiding force in Dean's life, a push and pull, a restless orbit he found he had no intention of breaking.

"Didn't expect to find you up here," Dean said. He stood to the side behind Cas, stealing a glance down at him. Cas was wearing the new peacoat that he'd picked up when he was out with Charlie. The black wool crumpled in his lap in the hollow pool of his legs, the back laying flat on the stone behind him. It was a waist-length coat and didn't fan out too far, oddly making Dean think of the tiny birds he'd seen around the outside of the bunker earlier in the year, their short stubby tails endearing as they popped about.

"I could say the same about you," Cas countered. He turned and looked back up at Dean. "Are you having difficulty sleeping again?"

The starlight reflected in Cas' eyes mimicked their old ethereal blue. Dean's voice nearly caught in his throat, but he soldiered on. "Nah," he tried to brush it off casually. "I was just on the phone. Charlie wanted to talk."

"At this time of night? Is something wrong?" Cas asked. The concern bled easily through his words.

"Besides all of our sleep schedules?" Dean joked. "No, she justed wanted to talk about something. No big deal. She says hi, by the way."

Cas gave a pleasant hum in response. He cocked his head at the ground next to him and raised an eyebrow at Dean. Dean took the invitation and sat down next to him, loosely hugging his legs with his knees drawn up to his chest.

"What about you? Why are you still up?" Dean asked. "You're usually zonked out by midnight."

"I couldn't sleep," Cas replied.

"Something bothering you?"

Cas chuckled under his breath. "It's nothing worth worrying you over."

"Yeah? Well you're losing sleep over it so it's gotta be something."

Cas turned to Dean and opened his mouth to speak, but shut it, letting it transition into a humored smirk. "My back is unbearably itchy."

The concern blanked from Dean's face. "What?"

"The tattoo," Cas specified. "It's been peeling the past couple days and tonight it's particularly irritating."

"No scratching it," Dean ordered with a stern point of his index finger. "Don't want you pulling off a scab and ripping the ink out. You need that sucker in one piece or else it's useless."

"I'm aware, Dean. After all, I do have more tattoos than you."

Dean laughed heartily. His breath turned to gray fog in the air. "That's going on the list of 'things I never thought I'd hear you say.' To be fair, though, we do have the same number of markings though."

Cas tilted his head in confusion.

"Your hand," Dean said, shrugging his shoulder up and down several times for emphasis.

"Oh." Cas frowned. "I hope you know that I truly am sorry for that. I tried to remove it when I resurrected you, but it would not heal. The mark was—"

"It's fine," Dean interrupted. "I like having an angel on my shoulder."

Cas sighed and dragged his hand across his face in a very non-angelic gesture, a fingertip catching his eyelid and pulling the skin unnaturally. "I'm not an angel anymore," he muttered. The words were unnecessary and heavy.

"I know," Dean said.

"That's it? 'I know'?" Cas echoed. His voice took on an edge that was bordering on defensive. "I cannot imagine that it doesn't bother you."

"Well, it doesn't. You're you, that's all I give a crap about. That douche could have killed you, so I'm thrilled you're here, juice or not. The only reason I even care you're not an angel now is because it bothers _you_ so much."

Cas' eyes darkened for a moment, but the hurt in his face melted into a soft reflective sadness that Dean had grown quite accustomed to during the past couple months.

"It's hard to explain," Cas said quietly, so soft that Dean could barely hear him over the rustle of wind in the trees.

Dean regarded him and their eyes locked. "If you want to try, I'll listen."

Cas sighed again and turned his head upward, his gaze landing somewhere among the stars. He shifted, uncrossing his legs and pulling them up to wrap his arms around, just as Dean did. His face looked nearly white in the chill, a stunning contrast with his dark hair and black coat, two troubled blue eyes radiating unspoken grief.

"I fell a long time ago, Dean. Having my Grace taken from me was just the final nail in the coffin, as you might say. One way or another, I knew this would happen eventually. I just didn't expect it to be so _sudden_, to cause so much destruction."

"You… _knew_ you'd become human?"

Cas lowered his head and nodded, looking out over the trees. "The longer an angel stays away from heaven, the weaker their Grace becomes, until there is nothing left. I often felt no desire to return. I haven't considered heaven to be home since the first time you referred to me as your family."

Dean was silent for a moment. "That was that big a deal to you, huh?"

Without turning his head, Cas flicked his eyes to Dean. "Was it not for you?"

"It was," Dean admitted. "And it was true. It still is."

"This is where I feel that I belong. With my family. Being human is frustrating and difficult but I think I'm finally starting to get used to it. I miss my wings, but other than that, well… other than that I only regret that I won't be able to protect you like I once could."

"But that's what family's for. The three of us, we'll take care of each other. The weight isn't all on you, Cas."

"I know."

"That's all that's been bugging you?" Dean asked, knowing it wasn't.

"I just… what I did— I feel so terrible about the price my kind was forced to pay, and what it gave to me—" Cas sucked in a harsh breath. "It gave me this. I'm _happy_ and I don't know if they will ever be able to return home! The gates are locked and their wings are burnt and it's all because I was too _stupid_ to see what was really happening. I've destroyed heaven _again_, Dean! How am I supposed to live with that?"

Dean turned around and sat facing Cas. He reached out and wrapped strong fingers around the fallen angel's arm. Blue eyes rimmed with tears fluttered up to meet him.

"You can be upset— I'm not telling you not to be. If you need to grieve, then do it. I get it. But you were one of them once, Cas. You guys were stubborn determined assholes who wouldn't take no for an answer, so if you're telling me they won't be able to work their way out of this, you're nuts. They'll figure it out. The ones that want to go home will fight for it, and the ones who don't… Well, maybe they'll realize that ole' Castiel had the right idea after all."

Cas sniffled and wiped the tears from his eyes with the heels of his palms. Dean pulled his hand back. He could see the internal struggle warring behind the watery sheen, the worry knitting his brow as it scrunched. Dean watched Cas train his stare defiantly off on the horizon as though feigning stern composure would make it a reality.

"You meant it, Cas? You're happy here?" Dean asked apprehensively, both because he didn't want to push Cas and because he was terrified that Cas would change his answer.

Charlie's earlier words to Dean echoed in his ears: _go be happy_.

Dean saw Cas' lower lip tremble and hoped he hadn't pushed too far.

"Yes!" Cas cried, a weak, almost soundless breath. He looked at Dean for a quick moment as his eyes reddened and he cast his gaze to the ground. "I shouldn't be. I don't deserve this, Dean, not—"

Dean came up to his knees and pulled Cas into his arms. Cas reflexively stiffened for a flash of a second, then let himself be pulled against Dean's chest as the hunter held him tight, whispering against the wind-tossed mess of Cas' hair: "You deserve it, Cas. You deserve whatever the hell you want. You've given enough."

Cas didn't weep or sob or make much sound other than a sniffle, but Dean could sense from how tense he was that a dark tear-stained patch was forming on the front of his canvas jacket. When Dean felt Cas' muscles begin to finally relax, he hugged him tighter, smoothing his hand down along the fallen angel's back. Cas made a heart-breaking whimpering noise and buried his face deeper into Dean's jacket.

"Heaven's gonna be fine. If anyone can take care of themselves it's your brothers and sisters. Give them a bit of time and things will be right as rain, I know it. But you're home, Cas, so… can you promise me something?"

The answer came in the nodding of Cas' head against Dean's chest.

"This isn't your fight anymore. Please, let yourself stop fighting it."

Dean felt more than heard Cas inhale sharply, exhale slowly, and then Cas unpinned his arms and wrapped them fiercely around Dean's waist, burrowing into the embrace.

"I'll try, Dean." Cas' voice came ragged and congested and raw with more emotion than Dean had ever heard from him. "I promise I'll try."

"That's good enough for me," Dean said, dropping a soft, silent kiss onto the crown of the fallen angel's head before he had the chance to convince himself not to. "Come on, Cas. You're exhausted, let's get you to bed. If you fall asleep up here there's no way I'm getting your grown ass down that ladder."

—

_November 15th_

_I had intended to write quite a lot this morning, but I was just awoken by Sam pounding on the door telling me that we're leaving in less than half an hour for a case in Illinois. In that time I still need to bathe and pack and have breakfast. It is close to noon, after all, so perhaps he had assumed I was already awake._

_One quick moment of thanks before I pack this journal in my bag: At least Dean has decided to wait until warmer weather to teach me how to drive. That means I can go back to sleep once we're in the car._

_I will write more when we arrive at the motel. There is much to say. _

_Castiel_


	10. Road Trip

Sam pressed the power button on his phone just to darken the screen and gave the device a sliding toss onto the dashboard of the Impala. It landed with a smooth scrape of plastic and tapped the windshield.

Dean gave his little brother a healthy dose of side-eye from the driver's seat and cleared his throat with purpose.

"What?" Sam asked. "It's got a case."

"I don't give a rat's ass about your i-Tweet piece of crap. Show the old girl some respect."

Sam laughed shortly, forcing air from between his lips. "I think she'll be just fine, Dean. Poor thing's been cooped up in the garage all by herself," he teased with a mocking tone. "A little roughhousing might do your _'old girl'_ some good."

"Remind me that when _you're_ an old fart. I'll start hurling denture paste and boner pills at your face and we'll see how _you_ like it."

"Dude, gross," Sam scoffed. "I floss. You're the one who's gonna need dentures."

"Really? An E.D. joke and you're offended by teeth in a glass?"

"These things happen when you get old," Sam said with a shrug. "Senior nookie aside, at least if Dad was anything to go by, we don't have to worry about male pattern baldness."

Dean speedily jerked the wheel and floored the gas, the Impala's engine roaring with passive-aggressive rage as he cut to the next lane and passed a mini van doing an inexcusable 45 miles per hour on a mostly empty stretch of road.

"I wouldn't be so sure we dodged that bullet just yet," Dean said, chuckling and grinning at his brother. "I could be looking at the next Mr. Clean. Henry was still young, but remember Samuel? That shit skips a generation."

Sam humphed and shrunk back into his seat, propping his elbow in the corner nook of the window and combed his fingers through his hair before resting his head in his hand. He used his other hand to reach forward and adjust the fan on the dash to accommodate his new angle, guiding the hot air to follow him. It was an unseasonably cold 28 degrees outside the car, if the weather widget on his phone was to be believed.

It was all fun and games, but hearing Dean joke about the two of them growing old was a novelty. Sam knew that deep down, Dean didn't believe a word of it, that they'd both bite it at the end of a gun or the last word of an incantation. In the past, Sam would agree completely, not that he'd ever openly encourage his brother's pessimistic viewpoints. It was part of the job, though. Expected. Their estimated lifespan was a roll of a dice, really. Could be today, could be a couple decades— who knew? At least one of the occupational benefits was irrefutable proof of an afterlife. As long as the angels managed to reopen the pearly gates, Sam was pretty sure they all had one-way tickets upstairs.

It was a fun thought he'd entertained during darker times— hell, if he was staring death in the face, it was a fucking ray of sunshine. Ash could teach them how to heaven hop and they could all be a family again, hang out at the Roadhouse, do whatever it was that souls did for all of eternity.

_'Isn't it pretty to think so?'_

Sam indulged a silent laugh. If there was ever a line that betrayed his suppressed bitter pessimism about all of this…

In their shared literary adventures, Sam had tried to get Cas to understand the brilliance that was Hemingway, but to no avail. Cas didn't seem to get why Sam liked the old expatriate but couldn't appreciate James Joyce, but then again, they couldn't agree on everything. Real brothers didn't, so why should they?

Sam watched as Dean changed cassettes, finally bored with _Back in Black_ after three listens of the album. Dean dug through his stash of music and switched it with some old Aerosmith cassette that Sam was partial to. It picked up right in the middle of one of his favorite guilty pleasure songs. Sam wasn't into old rock like Dean was, but some of it he couldn't help but warm to over the years.

_Hi ho silver, we were singin' all your cowboy songs—  
>Oh you told Carrie, and promised her you wouldn't be long— <em>

Keeping his eyes on the road for once, Dean was trying to stuff the AC/DC tape back into his collection's box, but it just wasn't happening. In what was a years-long developed reflex from having only his brother for company, Dean flung the cassette over his shoulder into the back seat.

Cas made a sleepy noise of confusion when the flying AC/DC hit him in his side with a soft _thwap_.

Dean's eyes flicked to the rear view mirror. "Shit! Sorry, Cas."

Cas was laying in the back seat, stretched out on his side facing the rear of the car. The Impala's heat didn't reach the back seat all that well, so he had his trench coat draped over him as a blanket in addition to his peacoat wrapped snuggly around him. He rolled over, the trench coat and the cassette falling to the floor. Cas used his elbow to push himself up and sat in the middle of the bench, looking from one Winchester to the other with sleep-hooded eyes.

"How far have we gone?" Cas asked. His tired voice rumbled even more than it typically did.

"A hundred miles, maybe a bit more," Dean replied. "Still early in Nebraska."

Cas glanced out the window, perhaps to confirm Dean's assertion. Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa— Sam thought it all looked the same, and there was no way Cas could see it any differently, especially so new to the road. Flat plains were flat plains no matter what name they went by.

"Have they called you back yet, Sam?" Cas asked, turning his attention to the younger brother.

"Yeah, actually. I just got off the phone with them."

"And?" Dean asked.

"It's pretty much exactly like Garth said. This old church was literally falling apart so they build a new one down the road. They're trying to tear the old one down and put up a convent there. If they can't keep the old building, they want to at least reuse the land, you know? It's been part of the parish for hundreds of years. They don't want to lose it."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean droned. "Cut to the good stuff."

Sam countered Dean's impatience with an exaggerated sigh. "So get this— they gutted the structure no problem, it's ready to be torn down and everything, but once the construction guys started messing with the utilities in the basement, things got weird. One of the sisters overseeing the renovations found the electrician in a pile of his own blood with his throat slashed, looked like he got mauled. Same thing happened three days later to the guy they hired to tear out the insulation. Now Sister Faye— she's the one who ended up getting in touch with Garth, the one I talked to— she said nobody wants to set foot down there now. Can't say I blame them."

"Did she give you any more information than that?" Cas asked.

"Unfortunately not," Sam replied. "She's really shaken up about the whole thing."

"So. Haunted church basement. Should be easy enough," Dean said. "On the way back, can we stop in Chicago? I wanna see if that place me and Death went to is still open. I could really go for some deep dish right about now."

Sam laughed. "Only you, Dean."

"What? It was really freakin' good."

"You said he killed everyone in the place, though," Sam said.

"Yeah? So?"

"Dean, that probably included the proprietors of the establishment," Cas said from the back seat. Sam could practically hear the eye roll in his voice.

"Leave it alone, man. A guy can dream."

Sam glanced at the time display on the dash. He had at least another nine hours of this before they reached the motel just down the road from the church. He let his head thunk against the window.

Life at the bunker was spoiling him. How the hell had he done this every damn day for so many years?

—

Google Maps had told them the drive was a good ten to eleven hours from Lebanon to the little town a stone's throw from the Illinois-Wisconsin border, no more than a blip on the map. Sam had offered to buy Dean a GPS one year for Christmas when hustling pool and throwing darts had lined their pockets nice and deep, but Dean had fought it tooth and nail. A classy gal like Baby didn't need a twenty-first century headache like that. They didn't need the turn-by-turn hand holding— a few maps did them just fine when they needed some specifics. With the hundreds of thousands of miles they'd racked up over the years, the brothers knew the state highways better than the tracks in their palms. Sam just found it fascinating that the little device would calculate their speed and distance and any stops they made, then tell them exactly when they'd arrive. Lately he'd taken to playing around with the navigation system on his smartphone while he road shotgun, but newborn homebody that he was, he'd left the charger on his nightstand.

It was just the three of them and the open road, and who knew when they'd reach their destination. It was strange yet familiar. They'd gotten rusty, but who's to say that was a bad thing?

As they closed in on Iowa, stomachs began to rumble. An idea came to Dean like an epiphany as it dawned on him that Cas had never had reason to experience the delights of his favorite chain restaurant when they were on the road: the Waffle House. He made Sam spend some of his precious data and battery life looking up the closest one, only to find that there were none to be found in either state. Rather put out (_'Shut up, Sam, the guy needs to start experiencing some of the finer things in life. You don't even use that waffle iron I got you for your wedding, so what do you care?'_), Dean grumbled and settled on a roadside diner for the sake of convenience.

Dean got a double cheeseburger with onion rings. Sam unsurprisingly got a salad which had enough nuts and chicken and croutons on it to feed a family of four, but hey, it was healthy, right? Cas ordered waffles, and if the apologetic little smile he gave Dean as he recited his order to the waitress wasn't the cutest thing Dean had seen in weeks, well, he didn't know what was.

Somewhere near Illinois found them stopping at a weigh station to make use of the free bathroom. They scooped some change out of Baby's toll money stash and grabbed some snacks from the vending machines there to hold them over for the rest of the drive.

Dean fed the metal money trap his quarters for a bottle of Dr. Pepper and the thing was dropped and rolled into the opening. He opened it then and there with a dramatic wince, hoping the turbulence didn't shake it up too badly. To his relief, it only fizzed a little bit. Cas watched him with interest and asked if he could try it since he wasn't sure if he'd had a soda or not since becoming human. Dean passed it to him and watched with interest as Cas' lips drank from where his own had just been, but his guilty stolen moment was broken by his own laughter as Cas nearly spit out the drink and recoiled in disgust.

"Weren't expecting so much fizz, were you?"

Cas wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and passed the bottle back to Dean. "Why would they put gas bubbles inside an item meant for hydration?"

"Some people like it," Dean said with a smirk before taking a swig. "We'll find you something else. That narrows it down a bit, since carbonation isn't your cup of tea."

Cas' eyes perked. "They have tea?"

Hot tea, iced tea, Dean didn't drink the stuff so he didn't know if people who liked one tended to like the other. Cas and Sam drank enough of their stupid leafy bag shit while they nerded in the library, so Dean felt reasonably confident when he dropped the coins in and pressed the button for a peach iced tea.

Cas sipped the Snapple and looked at the bottle as if it were the nectar of the gods.

Dean found he couldn't say no when Cas' eyes flitted longingly to the other flavors in the vending machine. There was only the peach tea, lemon tea, and some weird non-tea banana thing, so he bought one of each. A good chunk of the drive that followed consisted of his brother and the fallen angel debating the veracity of the so-called Snapple _'Facts'_ under the lids as Queen sang to them about bicycles and Moet et Chandon and some crazy little thing called love.

God, Dean had missed this. Hunting wasn't just rock salt and EMF readers, fake IDs and holy water hidden in hip flasks. Working a case meant the nitty-gritty and all the moments that fell between— family bonding time, Winchester style. With the three of them, it was worth the stomach-churning vending machine food and the pins and needles in his ass from sitting in the car for so long. Sam reenacting _Wayne's World_ in the passenger seat as Dean watched Cas in the rear view mirror, seeing his face twist in a unique bewilderment as he listened to the bizarre genius that is _Bohemian Rhapsody_ for the first time…

Dean had to take a deep drink of his Dr. Pepper to chase down the sentimental gook that was starting to clog this throat, letting the carbonation fizzle and crackle all the way down.

—

The motel gods had smiled upon them.

By some miracle at one in the morning, they were able to nab a room with two queen beds and space for a pop-up cot they only had to pay an extra ten bucks a night for. Sam was too tall for it— he'd laid down to demonstrate his point, his giant feet dangling off the edge— and Dean was exhausted from driving all day, so Cas willingly volunteered to take the first night. He had dozed a lot in the car, after all, so if he slept fitfully that night it would not be a great loss.

Sam called tentative dibs on first shower. Dean waved him off with a tired 'go ahead,' and flopped back onto the pillows that were surprisingly cushy for a roadside crashpad. Cas said he had no intention of going to sleep any time soon and would shower later.

The pipes creaked and they could hear the water sputter from the other side of the door, clapping onto the bottom of the shower in spurts before it began to run steady.

Dean sunk lower into his nest of quilted blankets and watched as Cas sat cross-legged on the cot, digging through his duffel bag.

"Dean," Cas said, sounding concerned. "My suit is wrinkled."

Dean yawned. "Don't need suits this time."

"Why not?"

"They're the ones that contacted us. They're expecting some paranormal investigators or whatever the hell people like us are called by non-hunters. If a handful of feds show up, Sister Whatserface is either going to freak out or treat us like a bunch of dumbasses."

"Oh, I see," Cas said. He stuffed Jimmy's old suit jacket back into the duffel bag.

"For once, we can get away with jeans and a t-shirt," Dean said. He stretched his arms and tucked them underneath his head on the pillow. "I can still show you how to fix it though. Guy's gotta know how to use an iron."

"That would be helpful, thank you."

"Gotta get you a new suit, too," Dean added as an afterthought.

"What's wrong with mine?" Cas asked.

"It's too big for you, man. If you're cruising with us, you gotta look dapper. Feds don't wear no Wal-Mart specials."

"If you say so, Dean."

Cas removed his leather bound journal and stuffed the duffel bag underneath the cot. It was tied in some complicated fashion that made Dean think of sailor's knots, with one of the fountain pens he'd bought Cas stuck through the middle like a girl would put a hair pin in a bun. Even from the bed Dean could see that the first chunk of pages were worn and wavy, disrupted from use.

"Has that been helping?" Dean asked. He couldn't help but worry that the question was too prying or personal, but he had to shove that worry back down where it came from. Not even twenty-four hours ago he'd held Cas while the fallen angel's walls had finally cracked. It didn't get much more personal than that.

Cas finished untying the complex knot and patted the smooth leather covering. "It has," he admitted. "I was uncertain at first, but it is quite freeing, and as Sam told me, re-reading through happy moments makes the bad ones more endurable."

"Have there been that many bad ones?" Dean asked, suddenly more somber.

Cas turned and gave Dean a soft smile. "Not as many as I had expected."

"Good." Dean rolled over onto his side and nuzzled his face into the pillow, closing his eyes. The heat in the room was cranked up to max so he didn't bother to climb under the blankets.

"Dean?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, Cas?" Dean answered quietly. Not annoyed, just relaxed.

"You said it's a ghost? What we're dealing with tomorrow?"

"Sounds like it. What, you scared?" Dean teased.

"No, I'm just not as convinced as you are," Cas said. "What if it's something else?"

"Then it's something else," Dean replied. "No use worrying about it until we get there."

"I suppose you're right."

"I am right. And I'm tired, so g'night," Dean mumbled.

"Goodnight," Cas echoed.

Once he heard the faint beginnings of Dean's snoring, he got up to turn off the overhead light and Dean's bedside lamp, leaving only Sam's lamp and the streetlight streaming in through the vertical blinds for light.

—

_November 16th_

_The brothers and I spent nearly twelve hours in the Impala today. Luckily the various bus rides I have taken in the past prepared me for such a cramped and monotonous experience, but it was still trying. Our various stops and the good company I enjoyed made it bearable. I suppose I will need to become accustomed to such long journeys, as I can only imagine we will be taking more of them in the future. One of the benefits is that I get to witness Sam and Dean interacting as brothers should. They joke, taunt one another, and sing along to the strange music. In the bunker it is too easy for them to avoid one another, even if it is unintentional. Here they are more natural and it is easier to see how deeply they care for one another. _

_I felt welcome among it. Perhaps that means that they care for me as well. At this point, Dean has referred to me as family, has told me the bunker is my home enough times that it seems petulant to think otherwise. It all seems too good to be true. I have killed and destroyed. I have made mistakes and brought misery upon countless others. I did not lie last night when I told Dean I am happy. Being part of this family is a gift I could never have hoped to even ask for. I do not deserve this, but Dean seems insistent that I do. I do not believe his words, but I also do not think he would lie to me. He once expressed to me similar sentiments to what I am experiencing. I am beginning to see that we all make mistakes. Just as Dean did, I find it difficult to understand that I might be worth something. If he thinks I am worth saving and forgiveness, I will not question him. If anyone knows suffering and redemption, it is the righteous man._

_As I write this, I am watching him sleep. He seems so vulnerable like this, this man. I have not seen him so at peace in all the years that I have known him. He has endured such horrors and given so much to this world while asking for nothing in return. Even still he continues to give of himself. To me, of all people. If it is his wish to help me, I will not deny it. There is nothing I would not do for him._

_Though I spoke the truth to Dean on the roof last night, I did not give him all of it. The rest of it I gave to Charlie. I am happy with the Winchesters and I will be forever thankful for their shelter and hospitality, for the genuine warmth of their company. It is true that I feel guilty for it. But the full truth which I cannot tell Dean, that I confided in our friend, is that I am in love with him. I experienced it in part when I was angelic, but now that I am human I have found I cannot ignore it. Just as I cannot ignore it, I cannot embrace it, nor him. I will indulge myself in this truth of mine in secret where it cannot be known, and where it has no risk of upsetting him._

_Looking back on that quote from Neil Gaiman's story, I know now what the character did not. I do want to kiss him. I do, but I will not take anything from him unless it is freely given. I am content enough to study his sleeping face from the opposite side of the motel room. I wish these hands could draw. He is beautiful._

_I have reconciled myself with the fact that this is what I have, and though in truth I do wish for so much more, in actuality, what I have is more than enough. As one of Dean's music tapes sang today: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need."_

_Music can be quite insightful. I have what I need, and I suppose that is what I am thankful for. I have food and shelter and a family who cares for me. I am learning new things every day, becoming a more competent human being. I want so much more, but I must admit, I do have enough._

_Castiel_

* * *

><p>Stuff referenced:<br>-'Draw the Line' by Aerosmith  
>-'The Sun Also Rises' by Hemingway (ugh)<br>-'Bicycle Race,' 'Killer Queen,' and 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' by Queen  
>-'You Can't Always Get What You Want' - The Rolling Stones<p>

I think that's everything?

Thanks for sticking with me, guys, and hi to any new readers! Love you all.


	11. Light

As they left the motel that morning, Sam yawned through a request that Dean seldom granted: 'Hey, mind if I drive?'

Dean's answer to Sam was a playful smack upside the head. It usually was.

It wasn't that Dean didn't trust Sam to drive the Impala. Sammy was a big boy now, and even if the fact stood that every single driver's license the kid had ever owned was a fake, he could drive. He could drive damn well. Dean just hated the passive helplessness of riding passenger. He wanted to do something. When he wasn't driving his legs would bounce and he'd tap his fingers on the door, and it was obnoxious for everyone involved.

More importantly, Dean downright _loathed_ having to adjust the seat and the side mirrors and the rear view mirror after _every single time_ Sam drove. The giant completely screwed up his settings. It threw off his groove, knocked him out of his comfort zone. Baby was supposed to be comfortable, not a give and pull of _almost_ right.

So no, Sam could not drive. What Dean wasn't expecting was for his little brother to slide into the backseat, leaving shotgun for Cas.

Well, that was totally acceptable. Even if Cas had to pull the seat up so Sam could fit his enormous legs behind him. It was only fair that Sam sat behind him— Cas was the shortest of the three of them, if only by an inch or two. If anyone was going to be scrunched, it was the one with the shortest legs.

It wasn't a long drive from their motel to the church, but Dean let Cas pick the next cassette anyway. Having had prior success with Pink Floyd, Cas popped in 'Obscured by Clouds.' When '_Stay_' came on, Dean didn't know if it was subconscious or not that he looked at Cas as he heard '_midnight blue burning gold_,' mesmerized by the morning sun catching on the fallen angel's face as he gazed out the window, bearing the stubbled angles of his jaw.

The realization had been there before. So had the understanding. But on that morning drive, Dean accepted that he was completely and utterly lost on the guy.

And there it was.

Dean had no idea what to do with it, so he just drove.

The church stood alone off of a winding dirt road on the outskirts of the small town. From the outside it looked humble— small with all white wooden siding and a quaint little bell tower and a garden out back. But the bell had long since been removed and the November chill had killed the flowers, and even if Dean hadn't heard Sam say yesterday that the place had been gutted, it would have felt empty. Something about this church was off.

Something other than the veiled woman sitting on the front steps in jeans with a shotgun across her wide-spread knees.

Dean cut the Impala's engine out on the yellowed grass of the front lawn. There wasn't a parking lot, and based on how tamped down and sickly the grass looked, it's what most of the old parishioners must have done anyway.

The painted lettering on the weathered board in the dirt was still legible: '_Church of the Eternal Light_.'

The woman swung the shotgun up to rest on her shoulder as she stood to meet them. "Is one of you Sam Winchester?" she asked.

"That would be me," Sam answered as he approached her with his brother and the fallen angel. "Sister Faye?"

"The one and only," the nun replied with an obviously forced smile. Sam offered her a firm handshake which she returned in kind.

"This is my brother, Dean," Sam said, waving toward the man in question, "and our partner, Cas Novak," he finished with a gesture towards Cas. Both men politely greeted her.

Even as Dean shook her hand, an uncomfortable twinge tickled the back of his neck. It wasn't her. Sister Faye seemed like a cool chick for a woman of the cloth. It was Sam— the _Novak_ thing. They were supposed to be themselves today, not playing a part. Cas wasn't a Novak, not in any sense of the word. Dean had made sure of that. Cas was Cas, and if he _had_ to have a surname, it sure as hell should be Winchester.

And there was another thought Dean had no idea what to do with, so he tucked it away and let his bristling ire settle. Novak it was, for lack of a more logical option.

Sister Faye nodded kindly towards both of them before setting her eyes on the fallen angel. "Cas? That is an unusual name. If you don't mind my asking, what is the origin?"

The bristling _un_settled.

"Not as unusual as a nun in hip-huggers packing heat," Dean commented in snide defense.

Cas barked Dean's name, but his reprimand was cut short by the Sister's scoffing laugh.

"I'm sure a man of your profession would understand, Mr. Winchester, that one tends to dig to the bottom of the wardrobe when one's usual attire is covered in bloodstains."

Sam coughed to cover up his laugh of surprise at the Sister's wit and his now-speechless brother's slack jaw and blinking eyes.

Cas cleared his throat, dispelling the sudden awkwardness of the moment. "It's a nickname," he said. "Castiel. I'm— uh— named for the angel."

Sister Faye's face brightened at that. A dimple formed in one cheek as she smiled, her youthful heart-shaped face framed by the black and white headpiece. "What a delightful surprise. Work for this church first began on a Thursday. Had it's first service on a Thursday." Her fingers white-knuckled around the grip of the shotgun and her smile faltered. "Perhaps God has sent us an angel in you, Mr. Novak. The Lord knows how I have prayed for one."

Sister Faye spun on the toes of her boots and waved over her shoulder as she made her way to the front doors of the church. "Follow me, gentlemen."

Sam followed behind, Dean and Cas tailing them. Dean flicked his narrowed eyes at Cas, who huffed as they made an immediate right upon passing through the door.

"I have no wish to lie," Cas whispered behind Dean. "That was as close to the truth as I could get."

"Yeah, well, keep practicing it, man. You're going to be singing that song a lot now."

They descended the steep stone stairwell with cautious footsteps. It reminded Dean of all the movies he'd seen with castles and their tight, claustrophobic staircases. Sam wasn't kidding. This place was_ old_. Obviously renovations had been done here and there over the years, making the place look spiffy and current, but what was the point of redoing the basement? Damn thing had probably been a dungeon once.

Dean ignored the nagging thought that they were willingly following a woman with a shotgun into a once-dungeon in an abandoned church. Instead he tried to focus and listen to the Sister's words.

She flicked a light switch along the way.

"The church was named for this room, so I suppose it only makes sense that any spirits that may have lingered here over the centuries are irate now that we are attempting to clear it out. There were dozens of lanterns on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, burning with blessed oil. Morning and night we were instructed to ensure that none of them had grown dim. It was part of our daily ritual. We refilled oil, lit candles. Not long ago we installed electric lamps since the oil was getting too expensive. But ever since the church was built, this was a room of impossible light and prayer. We gladly honored that legacy over the generations."

They rounded the corner into the basement. Any sense of centuries-old prayer vigils and blessings was killed by the pale white drywall and tiled flooring. There were ornate hooks lining the walls and crooking down from the ceiling that must have once held the lanterns Sister Faye spoke of, but now they looked eerie, like dozens of clawed fingers reaching out to them. The air in the room felt thick and heavy.

Sam's eyes caught on a bloodstain in the far corner of the room where dislodged wires were loosened and peeking out from one section of cracked drywall and shredded pink insulation (or, as Sam affectionately referred to it, _Satan's dandruff_). Dean focused on a lighter square-shaped patch at the center of floor, as if something had once covered it for a long time.

"What was here?" Dean asked.

Sister Faye scoffed. "A shrine to Lucifer. I always found it to be in bad taste, but it had been there since the seventeen hundreds. Something about him being the _angel of light_ made it appropriate, apparently. Trust me, I wasn't the only one happy to see it go once we got the order to clear out."

"Sister," Cas spoke from behind Dean, looking over towards the corner where she and Sam stood in the dim section where the lights had been disconnected. "Are you positive that there was nothing… _untoward_ that occurred here?"

"I can't attest to much, but if you're implying devil worship, Mr. Novak," the nun said, sneering at him, "I can assure you that something so filthy as _Satanism_ would not have passed under my nose unnoticed."

"It is a possibility," Sam pressed the point gently, looking down at the riled Sister who now held her shotgun low to the ground. "I know you don't want to hear it, but we need to consider all scenarios before we try anything."

"Light rituals, statue of the devil. Gotta admit, something's fishy," Dean said.

"There must be a reason, Dean," Cas said.

"Yeah, doesn't mean it's a _good_ one," the younger brother replied.

Dean rubbed the lightened tile with the sole of his boot. He gave it a kick for good measure, then made his way towards Sam and Sister Faye and the gruesome stain on the floor.

He stilled. Maybe it was just the creepy dungeon vibes this potential Lucifer alter was throwing around, but it felt like the air had moved. Not that _something_ moved, taking the air with it, but that the air itself had been repositioned. It was quick and harsh and seriously weird. He felt it again as a rustle against the bared skin of his hands and face and neck. Before he had time to react to the strange sensation, a shrill cry cut the air and he was screaming before he even felt the pain. Dean's vision blanked and his chest was hot, wet, _burning_ as his knees buckled. He heard his name and felt a pair of arms around his waist before he hit the ground.

He was gathered up and pulled towards a warm body. He felt the ground rise up to bash his knees. The world around him spun and he let his head fall back against solid warmth.

The last thing Dean saw was the color blue.

—

Sam saw it.

From his angle, Sam saw the play of light, saw the claw marks form as they were slashed into his brother's neck and chest. He saw the shock in Dean's eyes. He saw the fear in Cas', heard him cry Dean's name, saw him lunge forward to grab the man. It was animalistic, instinctive, without even a fraction of a thought toward the possibility that the same harm could come to him. Cas dove, grabbed Dean around his waist and yanked him backward and collapsed them to the ground, taking the full impact of the blow for both of them. Sam saw the way that Dean's head fought for a place to rest, and how once he found it, he looked up at Cas before his head fell limp against the fallen angel's chest.

Sam saw it all, had seen these things countless times over the years, so he knew that Dean was only unconscious. But Sam could also see Cas. He was clutching Dean's arms, shaking him, trying to nudge him with his face as he whimpered Dean's name among words of denial.

"Cas—" Sam said as he stepped forward.

"Stop!" Cas shouted, his deep voice rough and urgent. It froze Sam where he stood. "Don't. Stay in the light, Sam. Go around."

Sam touched his hand to Sister Faye's arm— the poor woman looked petrified, had even dropped her shotgun— and did as Cas instructed. He sidestepped around the spot where Dean had been attacked, giving it a wide berth. Then it clicked.

"Daevas," Sam said, looking down at Cas.

The stormy look in the fallen angel's eyes told him he was right. The way Cas clung to Sam's older brother, mouth pressed in the mess of his hair, told him that Cas was through with hiding anything from him.

Sam knelt next to them and reached out to peel at the wet shredded flannel that stuck to Dean's chest.

"Sister!" Sam called, looking back to the corner of the room. He reached into Dean's pocket and grabbed his keys which he then tossed to her. "There's a first aid kid under the passenger seat. Please."

Sister Faye was shaking, but she steeled herself and nodded. She knelt to get her shotgun, but Sam called out again:

"Leave it, it won't help!"

"Alright, I'll be right back." She rushed out of the dim corner and up the well-lit stairwell.

Sam put his fingers to Dean's pulse point to confirm his assessment of the situation. Cas watched him like a hawk.

"He's okay, Cas," Sam said, a bit surprised to hear the relief in his own voice. "He's going to be okay."

A shuddering breath escaped Cas' lips as they withdrew from Dean's head. Sam saw his shoulders visibly relax, felt the tension begin to ebb. Sam leaned forward and grabbed his unconscious brother under his armpits and hoisted him away from Cas, who jerked his hands away as if he hadn't even know he'd been holding Dean. Those blue eyes flared when Cas looked at his palms and found them sticky with blood.

"Help me out. I got him, you get these layers off him," Sam instructed.

Sam would have done a quicker, more efficient job of it. That went without saying. But Sam knew now more than ever that if anyone should be taking care of Dean, it was Cas. If there was someone that needed to, it couldn't be anyone else. He was so gentle with Dean as he manipulated his arms to free him from his jacket and plaid button-down. Even in an unconscious state, Cas gave all he could to try to spare him pain.

Normally angel-Cas was all glowing hands and instant gratification, so Sam suspected that a good portion of the fear in Cas' eyes was helplessness. He'd show Cas how to do it the human way. Right now was the speed run. Later he could get down to the nitty-gritty medical part of it and show Cas how to do it right.

"Cas, if it's… If it's daevas, why didn't they attack _us_? Why Dean?"

After Sam shifted his hands, Cas pulled the t-shirt up over Dean's head. It hit the tile floor with a wet smack. They both cringed.

"I have a theory," Cas said.

Sam's eyes swept over his brother's bare torso. The gashes were bright angry trenches cutting Dean's shoulder and dragging down across his chest. These were the longest, likely the first. Others in his side were more like attempted stab wounds, where the demons had tried to pierce him through, but did they not cut deep. That must have been when Cas intervened. There were similar scratches too close to Dean's neck for Sam's comfort, but they too had failed to reach fatal depth. Blood bubbled to the surface but didn't seep out, not like it did along his chest.

Sister Faye's footsteps pounded down the stone steps and she dropped to her knees next to the three men. She set the plastic first aid kit at her side and shrugged out of her jacket.

"Lay him down. We need to stop the bleeding," she ordered. She folded the jacket in her hands and watched Cas expectantly until he complied, slowly laying him down on the tile. Sister Faye wasted no time in pressing the material tight to Dean's chest.

Sam grabbed the first aid kit and snapped it open, looking over at Cas with concern. "Look, if you want to—"

Cas frowned at the thick clutch of gauze and bandages Sam held and shook his head. "No, Sam, I— I would do more harm than good. Please. You help him."

"I'll teach you how to stitch him up when we get back to the room," Sam said with a failed, forced curve of his mouth.

"Okay," Cas mouthed more than said.

Sister Faye snapped her head up. Her headpiece remained perfectly in place. "I could use another pair of hands here!"

"Okay," Cas whispered to himself, scooting back as Sam swooped in to compress his brother's chest.

It was a long and dreadful moment before Cas was able to tear his eyes away from Dean's paling face. He could not see the rise and fall of Dean's chest to assure him that he still breathed. Where once he could reach out and only just barely touch Dean's skin to heal the man's wounds, now his hand would only endanger him further.

Cas forced himself to tear his eyes away from the scene and set himself to the other urgent matter they had on their plate.

He pulled the angel blade from his belt and set the tip to the crumbling caulk between two floor tiles, dragging and scraping until it turned to dust. He lowered his face and blew away the residue. With access available, he slipped the tip of the angel blade underneath one of tiles and popped it up. Cas dropped the blade and grabbed the heavy square, shoving it out of the way.

Underneath the tile was a stone floor to match the steps. It was smeared with purposeful lines of dark red.

Cas didn't notice that Sam and Sister Faye were beginning to pull Dean's split skin together with butterfly bandages, didn't see the growing pile of gauze wrappers at their feet. His human heart was racing, pounding a fearsome rhythm as he pulled up more tiles, uncovering more squares of painted gore.

One of the tiles smashed as Cas hurled it across the room.

The noise startled Sam and he whirled around to Cas. "Dude, what are you doing?"

Cas was panting now. His fingertips were rough and red from digging at the stone.

Sam looked down at the devil's trap and his face went white.

"Cas, we've run into these guys before. They're _different_. The lore says devil's traps don't work!"

"It's altered. Old, very old witchcraft, fused with Enoch—" Cas stopped mid-sentence and coughed, looking over at Sister Faye, then back to Sam. "With enough black magic. It works."

Sam's eyes widened, but present company kept his mouth shut. Funny how a bride of Christ knew of demons and monsters, but would likely do as they once did and scoff at the literal existence of angels.

"With certain sigils added, drawn in lamb's blood thickened with holy oil, they can be held. They left you alone because they could not reach you, Sam," Cas said. "Daevas can only manifest in shadow, so if they are held within the circle they're—"

"That tiny spot," Sam interrupted, looking over at the drops of fresh blood on the tile. "They can only come out in that one spot. Where Dean stepped."

"Unless the other lights go out," Cas said.

Sam inhaled deep and turned to look at Sister Faye. "You said the church was named for this room?" Sam asked.

"Y-yes, it was," she replied shakily, smoothing a bandage around the curve of Dean's shoulder.

Sam sighed heavily and met Cas' foreboding stare. "It's not a church. It's a prison."

Cas snatched up his angel blade and stood abruptly. "Help her bring Dean to the car. Return alone."

"I'm not leaving!" Sister Faye protested. "I may not know much about these _things_, Mr. Novak, but I know about demons. I've helped with several exorcisms! The other Sisters in the convent thought I was mad to contact you all, but I've seen enough. This church has been my life. I'm not walking away from it now!"

Cas dropped low next to her, smoothing his hand across Dean's clammy forehead. "Sister," he said. "I'm going to turn off the lights."

Raw fear flashed in the nun's eyes and the next moment found her clambering to pull Dean to sitting. Sam bent to scoop up his unconscious brother and murmured Cas' name in warning as they passed him. Sister Faye hugged the wall as she scurried to grab her shotgun, snatching up the first aid kid on the way back.

The fallen angel watched them as they ascended the stone steps. Not until then did Cas look so much the part, blade gripped in an angry fist with the Righteous Man's blood staining him, residue of heaven's wrath flickering in his eyes.

Sam stretched Dean out in the backseat of the Impala and set Sister Faye with the task of guarding and caring for him. She gripped the shotgun to her chest and leaned against the open car door, watching with uncertainty as Sam jogged back into the church.

His boots thundered on the steps and his voice was low with fury when he grabbed Cas by the shoulder and spun him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?! If you turn off the lights, they'll all manifest, and what then? You can't kill shadows, Cas! The only choice we have is to find whatever summoned these things and kill _them_!"

Cas twirled the angel blade in his hand, staring intently at the section of the devil's trap he'd unearthed, old blood preserved with older magic. "Think about it, Sam. We're underground. Considering the circumstances and our remote location, I can only assume that this was once a dungeon belonging to a coven. Whoever summoned the creatures is surely dead."

"Then what? I've seen you reading all those texts in the library, you've got to know enough that these bastards can't be exorcised!"

Cas looked at Sam with narrowed eyes. "Daevas are _demons_, Sam. Believe me, I know enough. I lost many soldiers to them over the ages."

Sam's face fell. "Cas, I—"

"They were deadly little pests, nuisances that heeded no master. They were little more than shadow beasts. Then my brother fell, and who but the angel of light could have hoped to tame them?"

The younger Winchester's hazel eyes widened. "The statue. It wasn't Satanic or black magic, then. It was a ward."

"An attempt of sorts. Likely symbolic and ineffective, but appropriate nonetheless."

"If whoever summoned them is dead, then who trapped them?" Sam asked.

"We'll never know. It doesn't matter," Cas said, rolling the hilt of the angel blade in his palm. "If they finish tearing down this church and the devil's trap is broken, the daevas will be freed."

"Then that's our only option. We have to tell them the church stays."

Cas laughed then, something short and thick, heavy with an ageless undercurrent of knowledge. He looked to Sam and smirked as he squeezed his hand around the blade and sliced open his left palm in a swift deliberate motion. The fallen angel stepped forward to a spot that was easily inside the diameter of the devil's trap, if the size of the uncovered markings was anything to go by. Cas smeared his bleeding hand in purposeful arcs and lines across the tile, creating a sinister sigil encompassing him. He lifted his wrist and let blood trail down his fingertips, which he used to dot certain sweeps in the design.

"Turn out the lights, Sam."

Sam's feet scampered backward, but he couldn't turn away. By the time his fingers were on the light switch, Cas had begun to whisper.

Sam's heart was racing as he pulled the switch. In the darkness, the beasts began to shriek. Their shrill cries were too familiar now that he heard them in chorus, bringing him back to that abandoned loft nearly ten years ago as they played bait for their father and toy for the daughter of Azazel. Sam hadn't recognized it earlier when the one creature attacked Dean— it had been too quick, too abrupt. The demons' cutting screams sounded like they came from all around him, though he knew they were all in the center of the room with Cas.

The Enochian incantation grew louder, the coarse stilted words indicative of heaven's implicit wrath. The bloody markings surrounding Cas illuminated, a vile bloody light licking up from the sigil to writhe at his feet. In the dim light, Sam could see their shadows, now that he knew to look for them. There were so many, their cloaked humanoid figures and savage claws thrashing and twisting. Some tried to get at Cas, some tried to flee, but they were bound in the devil's trap and could not reach the fallen angel, the man kneeling protected by the language of his former kind.

Cas was shouting now, his fury cutting clearly through the hellish tumult. The red glow climbing up from the bloody tile grew more intense as his prayer hit a crest and the room exploded in blinding light. The noise which the trapped daevas made, Sam could only describe as a slaughter.

When the white faded from Sam's eyes, he could see clouded wisps of black being sucked into the ground. With every shadow dispelled, the light of the sigil dimmed.

The room was black and Sam could hear the fallen angel panting. Sam turned the lights back on with a rough smack of his hand and rushed to Cas' side, sinking beside him and grabbing his shoulders.

"Cas! Cas, you okay?" Sam shook him, the screams ringing in his ears making him speak louder than he intended.

Cas lifted his head and nodded to allay Sam's concern. "Yes, I'm fine."

"Are they…?"

"Gone, yes," Cas said. He looked around the room, blinking, mouth agape and eyes half-adjusted as he tried to focus.

"What the hell _was_ that? I thought you didn't have your powers anymore!"

Cas chuckled and braced his hand on the tile to help himself stand, but he winced at the pressure on the open wound and stumbled to his feet. "Clearly not."

"So that's all it was? A ritual?"

"Yes." Cas slipped the angel blade back through his belt loop. "You should know better than most how powerful words can be, Sam. You just have to know the right ones."

Sam almost thought he saw a small tinge of pride in Cas' expression, but then Cas went to wipe his hand on his sleeve, only to find it already stained with another's blood.

"They're waiting for us," the fallen angel said.

He hurried to the steps without waiting to see if Sam was following behind.

—

Dean, as an increasingly evident personality trait, had shit luck.

He woke to the biting pinch of a needle being pulled through his skin. He hissed, flinched, generally squirmed and protested against the heavy blanket of unconsciousness that was slowly slipping off him. His eyes came into focus, the pain brightened and grew sharper. He could see the ugly stucco on the ceiling, the yellow haze cast onto patterned wallpaper by the cheap motel lampshades.

Dean felt a hand on his arm and heard a gruff voice speak his name.

"I'm almost finished," Cas said. "Please, Dean, be still."

The hunter groaned and pressed his head back into the pillow as Cas pushed the needle and thread through the meat of his shoulder. He clenched his eyes shut against the sting which he'd never gotten used to, no matter how many stitches he and Sam had given each other, or how many he'd given himself when he'd been alone. Those had always been the easiest.

Having an angel heal him… Well, that he'd gotten used to.

Convincing his eyes to open again was no easy task. They felt a thousand times heavier than they should. "Cas," Dean slurred, "did you drug me?"

Cas was angled over Dean's shoulder, focused on his work. He met Dean's absent stare and frowned. "You looked like you were in a great deal of pain. I know you were unconscious, but I didn't want you to wake up and feel everything at once. Sam had some Vicodin in the trunk. I crushed it up and mixed it with some juice from the vending machine in the lobby and managed to get you to swallow it."

Cas returned to stitching him up with a soft mutter of '_only a few more_.'

"Look at you, man," Dean said. He let the tempting weight of his eyelids pull them closed once more. "You're a natural."

"Sam did most of it," Cas deflected the praise. "It seemed simple enough. I offered to finish so he could follow up with Sister Faye and the pastor at the new building."

"What the hell happened back there?"

Cas tied off the wound with a sturdy knot and bit off the excess string, sending it to the floor with a puff of breath. "There was a special devil's trap under the floor holding several daevas. The lights were a means of ensuring they never manifested. When the electrician started removing the wiring, one of the lights partially covering the trap was disconnected. It created enough of a shadow for them to emerge in that small section."

Dean sighed. He cringed at the tight burn he felt in the rise and fall of his chest. "Damn. Guess I should have watched where I stepped, huh?" He forced a laugh.

"There was no way we could have known."

"You knew," Dean said. He dragged open his eyes to see Cas watching him, elbows to his knees as he sat in the chair he'd pulled up to Dean's bedside. "You pulled my ass out of there."

"I saw it's shadow as it happened. If I didn't move, it would have killed you."

"But you did, and it didn't. I never said I wasn't grateful."

Dean turned over his hand closest to Cas in invitation. Cas reached out and took it, draping his bandaged palm over their folded hands.

"They get you too?" Dean asked when he saw the injury.

"No, I sent them back to hell."

Dean's face must have contorted into something flabbergasted and speechless because Cas laughed at him then, giving him a sideways smile.

"It can be done," Cas said. He held up his injured hand. "Old Enochian blood exorcism."

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you, buddy?" He gave Cas' hand a squeeze and felt the pressure returned.

"Perhaps… But Dean, it wasn't a ghost." Cas' lips quirked up playfully, those endearing lines around his eyes forming with mirth.

Dean chuckled. "So sue me, Cas. A guy can be wrong every now and then. Don't let this one go to your head. You kept sniffing the dead guy last time, so this evens it out."

"I'm glad to hear that I've redeemed myself," Cas joked along sarcastically. "Demons are more familiar to me than cartoons."

"And there's a depressing sentence if I've ever heard one. When we get back to the bunker, it's the three of us and the animated section of Netflix, you got that?"

"That sounds like a pleasant way for you to rest and regain your strength," Cas agreed.

Dean swallowed around the dryness of his throat. He could pick out the taste of cranberry juice. He thought about telling Cas to use orange next time, but the teasing moment had passed. Those blue eyes were weary. Dean wasn't the only one who'd had a rough day.

"You okay?" Dean asked.

"I am as long as you are."

And damn if those words didn't sound like they held more than Dean's Vicodin-addled brain could process in that moment.

The hunter let his eyes close and settled down deeper into the fluffy motel pillow. "Then we're alright."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"When we leave, Sam will have to drive."

Dean sighed.

"Damn it."

—

_November 17th_

_Humanity is terrifying. For the most part, I have grown familiar with the aspects of day to day life. I do not think I will ever be fully human in the non-literal sense, but I do like to think my attempts are passable. I do not understand, however, how humans can bring themselves to face each day anew knowing how impossibly fragile they are. Any day could be the last. I cannot imagine how it is for humans who do not believe in or know of the existence of the afterlife. I do not think I would have the strength to go on if I knew that at any moment it would end and there would be nothing._

_If this body's reflexes were not so well honed, Dean would have died. If any of the cuts had been deeper, blood loss would have claimed him. There was nothing I could do. I did not even know how to slow the bleeding or how to apply his bandages. I am grateful for Sam. Sam, who has taken care of his brother as his brother has taken care of him. Without him I would be lost. He showed me how to care for Dean, how to stitch him up and wrap the wounds, how to tend to them so as to avoid infection. He said that he knew that both myself and Dean would prefer if I played the role of caretaker. He later told Dean that it is so I can gain experience which I will surely need, but I believe I know better._

_If I had lost him today, I do not know what I would have done. It does not bear thinking about. He still breathes and he is still his same stubborn self. At this moment I am watching Sam scold him for trying to pull a t-shirt on over his wounds. Sam just called him a 'dumbass' and is dressing him in a button-up. It will be easier to change the bandages that way._

_If I had lost him today, I know I would have seen him again. He would be easy to find in heaven. The Righteous Man was crafted by God without a soul mate, for no other should be eternally linked to such suffering without full consent and understanding. He does not do well being alone, and his soul is so bright. I know when the time comes, I will find him. I will keep him company if he allows it. I'm starting to believe he might._

_It hurts, though, to think that I might have to live this way without him, even if for a time. As I held him today and he bled and bled and trembled, all I could think was, 'Father, he is not mine, but please, I beg of you, do not take him away from me.'_

_I am grateful, Father, that you answered my prayer._

_Castiel_


	12. Snow

Thank you to all of you lovely people who have been leaving feedback and comments and all that lovely good stuff. I'm kind of dumb when it comes how to replying to comments on this website, but I want you all to know you're awesome. Enjoy this update, I hope! 3

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><p>The drive back to Lebanon passed without much ado. There were a couple stops for fuel, both for them and for Baby, and one extended visit to a rest area in which Sam went for a walk to 'stretch his legs' while Cas changed Dean's bandages in the backseat. The fallen angel was thorough in his attentions, running inside to wash his hands before cleaning the area around the wound, then applying Neosporin from the first aid kid with a touch so light and careful that Dean could feel little else besides the cool glide of the gel. Dean only complained about the pain when Sam was in the car, and Sam responded by plying him with a safe yet steady stream of painkillers.<p>

Dean's other complaint was how they hadn't stopped for deep dish pizza like he'd requested on the drive up, but he quickly shut his mouth on the matter when Sam reminded him that Chicago was where they'd first tangoed with the shadow demons. No one mentioned what happened at the church. There was no discussion of daevas or nuns with guns or ancient prayers that did the impossible. The topic wasn't being avoided, but no one seemed inclined to be the one to bring it up.

No one discussed it, but their minds were heavy— Sam's with all he had witnessed, Cas' with the need to protect, and Dean's with a haze of partially-numbed pain.

The objective was to get home, get back to the bunker. So that was what they did.

Dean spent most of the first couple days sleeping. This made Cas restless with concern, causing him to make frequent visits to the sleeping brother to check for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Sam told him that Dean was just regaining his strength, but that didn't make Cas worry any less. During the time when Dean wasn't resting, he and Cas sat together on Dean's bed with the laptop as Dean made good on his promise to educate Cas in the world of animated television. What classics Dean couldn't find on Netflix, he scoured Youtube. What Dean provided in popular culture, Cas returned in the form of vigilant nursing and burgers in bed. Dean didn't have the heart to tell Cas that his cooking left much to be desired, but he ate with gusto, the overcooked concoctions stuffed into his smiling face as he and Cas laughed at Bugs Bunny and raised eyebrows at Adventure Time.

The gradual and inevitable drift of their bodies from the edges of the bed towards one another, culminating in a brush of shoulders or the companionable touch of legs, was never mentioned. If it ever was, they would have blamed it on the increasing cold.

Past mid-week, Dean was up and about on a regular basis, though it was clear he had run out of steam and hadn't quite worked it back up to capacity. He still slept in longer than he did before, and everything he did was with just a touch less enthusiasm than what Sam and Cas were used to from him. He cooked, he worked on the Impala until his injured shoulder ached— he did his usual day to day but slower. Even though he was well en route to full health, he still allowed Cas to tend to his stitches, cleaning them and adding the antibiotic ointment. It became a sort of ritual between them— a silent source of comfort in the form of healing touches and thanks that needed neither giving or receiving.

Dean inevitably grew restless, since both Sam or Cas wouldn't hear a word of Dean's complaints about being _fine_ and thinking it would be _totally harmless_ if he started looking for a new case to work. They overruled him, telling him he had to wait at least until the stitches were out, and obviously until after Thanksgiving, which was now only a week away.

Since Dean was 'through with being useless,' Sam picked up the paper one morning and gave Dean the multi-page insert to the local hardware and furniture store. It was with a grumble that Dean immersed himself into designing the new guest room. He roped Cas into the effort and they collaborated, together hoping that their individual lacks of knowledge on interior decorating would amount to something that wasn't too hideous.

The order was placed and Sam had plans to rent a U-Haul so he and Cas could ransom their purchases on the weekend.

Sam saw everything. Sam had known, had _always_ known that something bound the two of them— back from the days of cold stares and heaven's assignments to the night just months ago that Dean opened the bunker door and threw his arms around a grungy homeless human angel. Sam just didn't quite know what it was. He still didn't understand how it started— perhaps none of them truly did— whether it was a command of God or the touch of grace and soul in hell, or something else entirely. But seeing Dean and Cas together these past weeks was enough to put a name to what that bond had become.

Sam knew it was only a matter of time before things came to a head. He just didn't expect it to be when Cas came up from taking the trash out to the bin they kept outside the entrance to the garage.

Sam and Dean were sitting at the table in the library, discussing potential side dishes for Thanksgiving over a game of Jenga and a couple beers. It was Cas' silence that drew the brothers' attention to him as he stood in the archway, looking into the room.

"Everything alright?" Sam asked. He placed the wooden block he'd just nudged from the bottom center on top of the Jenga tower.

"Yes," Cas said. "It's snowing."

—

Dean was gently tapping a safe-looking block out of the center of the tower when he heard Cas' voice say, so content and wondrous: _'It's snowing.'_

The tower collapsed to the table, pooling wooden blocks out across the surface. Some shot out and clattered on the floor. Dean scooted his chair back and leaned down to pick them up, but winced at the stretch of his injured shoulder and the awkward angle of his chest.

"I'll get it," Cas said. He rushed to crouch and pick up the scattered blocks.

"It's just snow," Dean said instead of thanking him. "What's the big deal? It's cold. These things happen when it's cold."

"I have yet to witness snow as a human. It is much more enjoyable than I had expected based on my prior experience."

Sam took a swig of his beer and started restacking the wooden blocks. "What does snow look like to an angel?"

"Frozen molecules of water under the pull of gravity," Cas answered. He sat in the empty chair next to Dean.

"Well that's lame," Dean said.

"And now?" Sam asked.

"It is quite different. Tranquil. More pleasant than I had anticipated. I'd like to spend some time outside. Could I persuade you to join me for a run, Sam?"

Sam offered Cas an apologetic excuse for a smile. "Running in the snow isn't exactly my thing. I slipped once— almost broke my ankle. Sorry, Cas."

Ever since Cas had fallen from grace, Dean had been relearning how to read him. To say Cas had been stoic as an angel would be like saying that Dean enjoyed pie on occasion. Still, Dean had figured out the nuances of his words and expressions, learned the subtle differences between 'content' and 'contemptuous' and everywhere in between. It was different now that Cas was human. He was still less expressive than most, and Dean wouldn't turn away a bet that Sam didn't notice the change in Cas at that moment.

To anyone except Dean, Cas meant his words when he nodded at Sam and said: "I understand. I can imagine how that would be a deterring experience."

Dean knocked back the last of his IPA and gingerly set it down on the table so the force wouldn't knock down Sam's growing Jenga tower.

"I'll go," he said.

Sam jerked his head up. "What?"

"Not _running_. Duh." Dean turned to Cas. "I'll tag along if you don't mind slowing it down a bit.

Cas' eyes brightened, but the newborn hope on his face quickly morphed into a concerned frown. "You're not well. I won't have you draining your energy for such a frivolous task."

"It's just a damn walk, Cas, not a _task_."

Sam lowered the Jenga box over the perfectly formed tower to hold the blocks in place. "He's right."

"You guys are acting like I got my arm chopped off, for god's sake. It's just a few scratches. I mean, come on. Seriously?"

"Seriously," Sam said. "It wasn't like the first time when we knew the daevas were there. That thing jumped you, man. You might think you're invincible sometimes, but you didn't see it happen. You didn't have to sew those lacerations up. You need rest. You're not Superman."

Dean huffed. "No, I'm Batman, and Robin needs to loosen his undies and calm down a bit, alright?"

_"Dean."_

"I'll be fine. Just ask my nurse."

Both brothers looked to Cas whose eyes widened. "What?"

Sam sighed and took a deep swig of his beer. "I really can't with you two sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked.

"It means go," Sam said, shooing his hands at them with beer still in hand. "Go play in the snow or whatever. Do your thing, but keep an eye on him, Cas, you got that? Don't go far."

"Of course," Cas said. "I'll get our coats."

Dean knew that even Sam had to see the innocent excitement on the fallen angel's face as he popped up from his seat and left the library to fetch their outerwear from their respective rooms. Even with Sam's lips around the mouth of his bottle, Dean could see the smirk. It was infuriating.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like… you know."

"Like you just volunteered to go for a nice quiet totally platonic walk in the snow with your best friend?"

Dean felt his cheeks heat. So, Sam obviously knew. That didn't exactly come as a surprise, but having it out in the open made him squirm. Dean's mental reflex brought the words '_shut your face_' to his lips, but he swallowed them down. "He's done enough for me this week," he said instead. "If the guy wants to see some damn snow, it's the least I can do to keep him company."

Dean was watching Sam, studying him for any tell or sign of mockery or approval or whatever the hell his little brother would think of him for not denying the implications of it all. All Sam did was curl his lips until his hazel eyes bounced to the entry from the hall.

Dean turned to see Cas standing there looking like he was ready to attack winter head-on and turn their walk into a total snow day. He was already bundled up in his peacoat with a raggedy blue scarf hugging his neck and tucked under the wool. Dean had found the thing in one of his old duffel bags not too long ago and hung it up in Cas' closet without mentioning it. He guessed Cas found it, by the looks of it, and _damn_ did the touch of color at his neck make his eyes pop.

Cas approached Dean holding the hunter's heaviest leather coat. "I didn't see any gloves or other accessories. I didn't think you'd want me going through your things."

"Not to worry. I don't have any," Dean said. He got up and took the coat from Cas, shrugging into it and actually taking the time to button it for a change.

Cas frowned at him. "That should not pose a problem tonight as it is not too cold, but won't you need them for later in the winter?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Cas. Now let's go before Sammy here remembers about that stick up his ass and sends me back to bed."

Sam saw them off with a lazy salute and a private wink just for Dean, who met his brother's eyes for a split second as he pulled the door closed behind them.

Dean forced himself to take in a slow deep breath as he scaled the small landing and digested Sam's stupid little wink. His well-honed instincts told him to be angry about it, to want to throttle his little brother and tell him to keep his immature judgment to himself, but it was all for nothing. The only person who knew him better than Cas was Sam, and even though they'd had more than their fair share of deceit over the years, Sam could read him like a large-print novel.

And that was okay. There were times on the job that Dean wouldn't trust Sam any further than he could nudge his two-hundred plus pounds of moose weight, but he knew his little brother well enough to know that Sam wouldn't mess around about something like this. They'd both repeatedly been through the emotional meat-grinder as it were, and there was no way that either of them would encourage something that would build the walls around their calloused hearts any higher. If Sam thought he knew how Dean felt about their adopted fallen angel and expected anything less than reciprocation, he wouldn't have taught Cas how to tend to Dean's wounds. He wouldn't have ushered them out the door with a wink and a jab at how definitely _not_ platonic the whole thing was.

Dean could admit to himself that how he felt about Cas was probably the least platonic he'd ever felt towards another person. Hell, from an outside perspective, this damn walk they were going for seemed downright romantic, and for some reason, that didn't scare him one bit.

That was probably because Cas was Cas, and the new human probably hadn't the slightest idea about any of this crap.

Cas was standing in the driveway with his hands stuffed deep into his woolen pockets. It was all Dean could do to not reach in and take one of those hands to hold. Cas had let him do it back at his bedside in the motel. Would he let him do it again? Dean yearned to feel those long fingers twined with his, but Cas had probably written off the incident in the motel as a side-effect of the Vicodin. He would wait.

The snow was falling in large puffy flakes that melted when they hit the pavement. Cas looked so at peace watching it. There was a thin dusting of white on the grass and on the tops of plants and branches around them. It was just a flurry. It would probably be gone without a trace in the morning.

"Lead the way." Dean jabbed his hands into his own pockets and looked at Cas expectantly.

They went to the left, starting out along Sam and Cas' usual jogging route. Cones of light streamed down from the occasional street lamp and illuminated the lazy fall of snowflakes fluttering down with no real direction. Their walking pace was leisurely as they headed in the direction of the main road, eventually ducking towards the right to take a forest trail instead of heading down the road that lead into town. The lights fell behind them, the dim of the dark evening pierced only by the glow of the moon and the few persistent stars that gleamed through the clouds and down through the barren branches.

"How are you feeling, Dean?" Cas eventually asked, breaking the quiet that had been punctuated only by their footsteps and the sound of cars in the distance.

"I'm good. Yeah, I'm a bit banged up and I'm more tired than I was gonna admit in front of Sam, but I'm good."

Cas' eyes grazed him with a sidelong look of unveiled concern. "You will tell me if you need to stop or return to the bunker, won't you?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine, Cas, you don't have to worry. It's nothing I haven't dealt with before."

"It's also my understanding that you and your brother have also rarely taken your own health into consideration before."

Deah laughed. "Disability leave ain't exactly in the job description."

"It can be," Cas said. "If the two of you won't look out for yourselves, I will have to insist on doing it for you."

Dean warmed at the protective tone of Cas' voice. Even after everything that had happened, they still had a guardian angel.

"Well, you're doing a great job so far, man. I'm almost as good as new— should be back to normal once we get the stitches out."

"Sam said due to the depth of the cuts that we should wait several more days."

"Fine by me. I'm just glad the bastard missed my tattoo."

"Is the chest typically a painful area to have inked?"

"No. I, uh…" Dean coughed and looked directly ahead down the dirt path, making a point not to give Cas a chance to meet his eyes. "I hate needles."

Even in his peripheral vision, Dean could see him smirk.

"But you allowed me to finish your stitches."

"Gotta do what you gotta do, right? It's not like I have a fear of 'em or anything, just…" Dean shuddered. "No thank you."

"Then you were an excellent patient, especially considering that I had no idea what I was doing. I apologize if there is any scarring."

"I don't care. You can mark me up all you want, Cas. I'm just glad to have you looking out for me."

Dean turned to see Cas bow his head and smile to himself. He knew the thought was cheesy as soon as it sprung to mind, but _god_, Cas looked good like that, skin paled by the moonlight and dimples denting those full cheeks, willingly wearing a smile that Dean had given to him.

Dean had to speak, had to change the subject before he said any of these mortifying thoughts aloud. "How's your hand?"

Cas pulled his left hand from his pocket and flexed his fingers, turning his palm over and angling it towards Dean. An angry red gash ran down across the underside, striped with stitches of its own.

"It could be worse, I suppose. I was not in my right mind when I drew blood for the sigil. I cut deeper than I should have."

Dean's chest constricted as he looked at the gash. All this week Cas had kept a bandage over it. Now that it was uncovered, it looked so much worse than he had expected it would. Cas '_wasn't in his right mind_'? When was Cas anything other than calm and precise?

Dean was ready to tuck that thought away to ponder at a different time, but Cas stuffed his hand back into his pocket and sighed.

"I was too worried about you."

Dean had been hoping as much, but hearing it still surprised him. "Cas—"

The fallen angel looked over at him, reminiscent fear and sadness showing in the rough waters of his blue eyes. "For a moment there, I thought you were gone."

All of the things Dean wanted to say to comfort Cas clogged his throat. The only thing he managed to voice was: "I'm not."

"I know." Cas breathed in deep as they rounded a bend in the path. "Thank you."

"For… not dying? I try my best."

Cas laughed and grinned at him. "Well yes, for that, of course, but… for everything. For being my friend. For allowing me to watch over you. For coming with me tonight when I know you would prefer to be drinking with Sam. All of it."

"I never said that. I know I talk a lot, but don't go putting words in my mouth. Maybe I'd rather be with you sometimes, okay?"

"But he's your brother," Cas protested.

_And you're my everything_. Dean shook his head and sighed. "I thought we already had this discussion, Cas. Anything I can do for you, I'll do it. Remember?"

"I remember. I just don't understand why."

Dean frowned. "Because I want to."

Dean thought that Cas might ask him '_why_?' again, tossing them into an endless loop of childish question and answer and an overly adult avoidance of the real issue they had on their hands. Cas said nothing, sparing them at least the first problem. As for the second— the actual answer to Cas' question that never came— well, that wasn't exactly something Dean could put words to, let alone bring himself to speak.

"The path gets rougher up ahead," Cas cautioned him. "Many of these trees have roots above ground that have grown across the path. Please watch where you step."

Dean noticed the slight incline that the ground took, his footsteps angling downward. The thin sprinkle of white that dusted the earth was filling in as the snow collected. Their footsteps were beginning to leave prints as they walked.

"How are you liking the snow?" Dean asked.

"It's beautiful. Everything seems more peaceful because of it, and somehow more quiet."

"Even with me here, running my mouth?"

"Especially because of that," Cas said.

Dean felt the corner of his lip quiver as he tried to hide a smile. He wasn't one hundred percent positive, but he suspected that there was a good chance they were flirting, so he ran with it. "Oh really? Why's that?"

"I thought that was obvious by now."

"What was?"

"I would always prefer to have you by my side if I could."

The beat of Dean's heart quickened. He tried to sound calm and capable of holding himself together as he asked: "Is that so?"

"Yes, Dean," Cas said with a sigh of resignation. "You may take that for what you will."

Cas wrapped his injured hand around a low-hanging branch for purchase as he clambered onto a gnarly tree root that split the dirt path and obstructed simple passage. The limb bobbed in his grasp, sprinkling them with loosened snow.

Dean laughed as the snow fell in his eyes and caught in his lashes. "I bet this is a load of fun when you guys are out here running," he said sarcastically.

"It actually is, but please be careful here. The path drops."

Cas jumped and landed with enough room for Dean to climb down. The fallen angel offered him his hand to steady himself as Dean vaulted over the root with what slow grace he muster. The touch of Cas' hand was burning hot in the cold air between them and he gripped it tight.

Dean's boot hit the snowy ground and slipped. The scrape of his heel revealed the patch of ice underfoot and Dean yelped as gravity yanked him one direction and Cas pulled him the other, grabbing Dean's arm and jerking him away from the ice. Dean crashed into Cas' chest and clutched the fallen angel's arm to steady himself.

"Are you alright?" Cas asked with breathless concern, drawing back to skim a worried hand over Dean's chest as if he could inspect the sutures through the many layers the hunter wore.

Dean was too busy laughing.

"I'm great, Cas." Dean shifted his hold on Cas' hand and laced their fingers together. "I'm really great."

Dean kissed him. It was little more than a brush of lips, quiet and soft like the falling snow that he now felt so acutely on his face and seemed to have frozen Cas where he stood. Everything was still. Cas' lips were so soft and full that Dean had to keep from whimpering. He broke the kiss to see Cas' eyes flutter open, those blue depths studying him intensely.

"Dean." There was a strained weight to the way Cas said his name that felt like a fist to his gut.

"Talk to me, Cas." Dean's voice shook. "Tell me right now if this isn't okay. I'll stop."

"_No._" Cas squeezed Dean's hand harder, digging his fingers into the thick skin of the hunter's palm. "Please, Dean, I need—"

Dean dropped Cas' hand and latched onto the thick lapels of his woolen peacoat, pulling Cas into him. Their mouths met and Cas _did_ whimper, a needy sound pitched higher than his voice that went straight to Dean's chest and burrowed in deep. The smooth play of their lips was intoxicating, and the overwhelming sensation of relief would have had Dean crumbling to the ground if it weren't for the strong arms snaking around his waist.

Dean gasped at the possessive hands grabbing tight at the small of his back. He felt like he could nearly melt when Cas seized the opportunity and licked into the open seam of his mouth. Dean sunk his fingers into Cas' scarf and pulled him in closer as a muffled shameless groan escaped his throat. Cas' touch was divine, and he tasted even sweeter.

Cas broke to breathe and held Dean's face in his hand, tilting to press a long, delicate kiss to the hunter's forehead. "You are too clumsy for your own good," he said quietly, the muted timbre of his voice rumbling against Dean's skin.

Dean smiled with a pleased hum. "Am not. I'm just having stroke of bad luck with where I step."

"You're lucky I have been there to catch you."

"Don't I know it," Dean chuckled. He nosed at Cas' chin as he brought their faces level again, kissing him softly. Dean reached up and smoothed his fingers through Cas' dark hair, making the snow that had gathered there spring up and rain down on him.

Cas laughed, that gorgeous toothy, dimply, scrunchy laugh of his, and did the same to Dean, raking his long fingers through the hunter's short brown locks. Dean blew the snow off of his face and captured that full mouth again, and soon his was nipping and sucking at Cas' smiling bottom lip.

Cas led him backward and Dean felt his thighs hit the thick tree root from earlier. He dropped onto it, happy for a place to sit, even if the snow was cold on his butt. Cas stepped in between his knees and kissed the top of his head.

"You're tired," the fallen angel said.

"A little bit."

"We should head back to the bunker. It's not far."

Dean petted the thick wool covering Cas' chest and looked up at him with green eyes that paled in the moonlight. "Not yet."

"I need to check your stitches. You could have aggravated something."

The hunter grinned up at him. "You just want to see me topless."

"Dean," Cas sighed and took Dean's hands, pulling him back to his feet.

"Fine. But if Sammy asks why we took so long, it's because I fell and almost busted my ass."

"That's perfectly believable."

Dean barked a '_Hey!_' and swatted Cas on the arm, but the fallen angel brushed him off and kissed his cheek.

"Let's go home."

—

_Dean,_

_I apologize for my quiet behavior upon our return. I did not mean it as any indication of my feelings towards you or regarding what happened last night. There are many things that you do not understand, that you do not know about me, and how these past weeks have affected me._

_I know that this might make you uncomfortable, but I have a request that I implore you to indulge. Please read this. Please read all of it, beginning to end, so that you know what you are getting yourself into if you choose to do as much as even speak to me again. I will not deceive you by keeping silent about these things which I cannot speak aloud. I ask that you read them instead. Judge me based on what you find here, for it is the best way in which I could possibly hope to express myself. If from there you should choose not to pursue what was begun last night, I will understand. I will not place any blame upon you._

_Please do not seek me out until you have read every word._

_Castiel_

—

Cas ripped the page out of his journal, finding difficulty in taking his eyes off of the fresh writing on the opposite side. It pained him, but he could think of no other way.

He closed the journal, wrapping the ruddy leather flaps and strings around to close it tight. He folded up the note and tucked it securely between the ties and the cover and scribbled Dean's name on it.

Cas left his room and walked the couple doors down to Dean's. He could hear the hunter snoring. The laptop still sounded with the tell-tale noises of the Looney Tunes. He propped the journal against the door and made his way down the hall towards the library.

He wouldn't be getting any sleep that night.


	13. What We Are Now

Thank you to everyone who has read and especially to those leaving such kind reviews. To the guest who suggested I start posting on AO3, I'm way ahead of you. I'm over there under the same name, with more of my stuff posted there than here for various reasons.

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><p>When Dean woke, he was alone. Even as he fought through the lingering heavy haze of sleep, the rational part of his mind told him that this was normal and nothing worth dwelling upon. The mornings when he woke up with someone in his bed were typically panic-inducing, so with all things considered, today would have normally seemed to be starting off swell. Dean could even smell the delicious come-hither smell of Sam's southwest style egg and potato skillet dish teasing up through the crack under his door. Even better.<p>

But then Dean pushed up on his elbow and groaned as his sewn-up skin shifted and made him wince. His eyes adjusted to the dim of his room and he found that he was on top of the covers instead of under them, with a blanket he didn't recognize draped over him. He stretched his legs and flinched in surprise when his foot nearly knocked his open laptop off the bed. Dean shot up and floundered to grab it before it tumbled to the floor. He must have pressed a few keys in the scramble because the screen came to life. 'The Biggest Looney Tunes Compilation: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and more!' had ended hours ago and Youtube had stilled, asking him if he wanted to replay or move on to the next video.

He closed the laptop and set it safely in the center of the bed. He reached for his nightstand where he'd recently taken to keeping a glass of water, but instead found two empty mugs.

That's when the bed began to feel empty.

_Cas._

They'd been cold when they got back to the bunker last night. The cold normally wasn't an issue, but the heat was taking it's sweet time fully kicking in. It's not like they could call the utilities company and bitch about it— they weren't exactly paying customers, and how they even managed heat and water was beyond Dean's understanding. It was some fraudulent hacker voodoo that Charlie had conjured up, and neither of the brothers were going to question it. They just let her work her magic and basked in the cozy luxury of her efforts.

Dean had gone to put on a pot of coffee, but Cas stopped him. Eleven PM was no time for caffeine, so Cas made them tea instead. Any other time, Dean would have refused. Dean Winchester did _not_ drink _tea_. But with the memory so new and vivid of those full lips pressed to his own, he could refuse his angel nothing.

Tea wasn't so bad, it turned out— or at least the kind that Cas made for him wasn't. _Chai_, he vaguely remembered being told, staring into the empty mug. Cas had said that Dean might enjoy it and had steeped it strong, adding a splash of milk and just a tease of honey. It had tasted spicy and dark with an undertone of sweetness. Dean liked it. After Cas had tended to his wounds and the drink had time to cool, Dean had sipped it contentedly as the hot mug steamed in his hands, his eyelids growing heavier by the minute.

It must have been a combination of the warm drink melting his bones and the Tylenol PM. Dean didn't bother fighting it, but as it got harder and harder to stay awake, he became more aware of the distance spread between him and Cas. The fallen angel stayed to his side of the bed, not pushing away Dean's sleepy flirtations but not embracing them either. Cas grew silent and the smile fell from his face. It was like the guy had just shut himself off and there was suddenly this ugly thing between them that was smothering the new joy they had only just uncovered. Dean had half expected Cas to leave, but he didn't.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he knows that when he did, it was with a heavy heart and Cas' solid weight still creating the slightest dip in Dean's memory foam mattress.

Now he was alone. Dean hadn't expected Cas to spend the night, even if it would have been so good to just hold him, but he could have at least _said_ something. What was Dean supposed to say when he bumped into him later? Cas had seemed so happy after they had kissed, and now he was acting like the moment had never happened.

He had no idea. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was everything.

Dean got out of bed and slipped his arms into his gray bathrobe. When he pulled open his bedroom door, there was a soft _smack_. He looked down to see the journal he had bought for Cas lying there at his feet.

_What the hell?_

Dean crouched to pick it up with no small amount of trepidation, the soft feel of the leather in his hands no balm for the sting he felt at the myriad of possible excuses and reasons for Cas' journal ending up at his door. He smoothed his hand over the cover, his fingertips jumping at the thick tie that held it closed. He turned it over and found a folded up page stuffed in between the uneven flaps of the top cover. It had his name on it.

Dean backed up and sat on the edge of his bed. He placed the journal on his lap and unfolded the note.

* * *

><p><em>Dean,<em>

_I apologize for my quiet behavior upon our return. I did not mean it as any indication of my feelings towards you or regarding what happened last night. There are many things that you do not understand, that you do not know about me, and how these past weeks have affected me._

_I know that this might make you uncomfortable, but I have a request that I implore you to indulge. Please read this. Please read all of it, beginning to end, so that you know what you are getting yourself into if you choose to do as much as even speak to me again. I will not deceive you by keeping silent about these things which I cannot speak aloud. I ask that you read them instead. Judge me based on what you find here, for it is the best way in which I could possibly hope to express myself._

_Please do not seek me out until you have read every word._

_Castiel_

* * *

><p>Dean reread the note several times, each time forcing his eyes to slow and fully digest the words instead of racing to devour them. He dragged his palm down over his mouth and sucked in a stuttered, harsh breath.<p>

It was a warning. An apology. A prelude to complete surrender cloaked in so much trust and naked hope that Dean felt smothered by it.

He wanted to crumple the note and throw it across the room, hurl it back into the hallway where it had been before so he could pretend to go on without knowing of it's existence. His mind was everywhere and nowhere at once, but like a dog baring it's teeth, Dean fell to aggression and frustration because that was who _he_ was, born and raised. Dean '_shoot first and ask questions later_' Winchester, courtesy of a dead mother and a brother in his charge when he was barely out of diapers himself and a gun in his hands before his voice had even dropped.

How _dare_ he. Cas knew _everything_ about him, about his blood-smeared youth and the sick euphoria he felt as he carved out his own little place in hell, and Cas _still_ looked at him and decided that yes, this man is worth it. The aching part of Dean Winchester buried beneath the filth he'd been drowning in for the past thirty-four years that starved for affection, apparently Cas could see it, of _course_ he could see it, and he was torturing Dean with it.

Cas knew everything about him except how much it _hurt_ for Dean to think that after all Cas had forgiven and embraced in him, that there was _anything_ Dean could fault him for.

He wasn't angry at Cas. Dean was angry at himself for failing to keep that toxic thing within himself from growing within the fallen angel. Neither of them were perfect. They had both made mistakes, both experienced tragedy and failure, but Dean hated it still. He hated that there was any part of Cas that felt like he was undeserving of whatever it was he wanted in this new life he'd fallen into.

Whatever it was, it was in the pages Dean now held with shaking hands.

Dean folded up the note and tucked it behind the last page of the journal after he opened it. He thumbed through the group of pages in the front whose edges were warped and worn by human touch. The thick paper was coated in Cas' slanted scrawl, more elegant than he would have guessed. He could see the thinner strokes where the words had been written quickly, the small pools of dried ink where thoughts had stilled Cas' pen.

Dean let the cover flap fall back over the journal and stared at it for what felt like a long time. He set it on the bed next to him and got up and shuffled slippered feet down the hall to wash away his anxieties with a hot shower and clear his thoughts with the monotony of his morning routine.

Sam's cooking smelled fantastic, but Dean found that even the thought of food just made him nauseous. He was too nervous.

He rinsed out one of the tea mugs and filled it with water from the bathroom sink and locked himself in his room. Propping his one remaining pillow between his back and the headboard and pulling what he could only assume was Cas' blanket over his folded legs, Dean grabbed the journal and opened it.

Cas had asked for this, and Dean would not deny him.

* * *

><p><em>Dean,<em>

_If you have somehow against your better judgment read this far (I say so knowing how you tend to avoid anything relating to emotions and sentiment and anything of the sort), I can assume either one of two things: One— I have terrified you and it was curiosity that brought you to the end, or, Two— you are relieved (which I admit, I do allow myself to cautiously hope for as you are the one who kissed me, but it would not be the first time I have been irreparably incorrect about something of monumental importance)._

_Whichever the outcome, there are still things I need to say. However you feel after reading this, there are still things you need to know and understand. If I have already lost you, I have nothing else to lose by baring myself here to you._

_Firstly, I revisited my writings before leaving this at your door and there is one matter that requires clarification: I watched you raking leaves one day while you were living with Lisa. I am not proud of it, but you deserve to know._

_There are no great secrets left for me to reveal. I am in love with you. I understand that I have not been human long and you might think that I may not have a firm grasp of what that word means, but I assure you that I do. I have loved you for a long time, Dean. When my fall began and our unlikely kinship intertwined our lives, I know that we were often at odds, but I know that you will agree that over the years things did change. As I fell I began to feel. I was given a taste of what I would eventually experience as a human, and even then, I was overwhelmed by my regard for you. I cannot say when or where I began to understand it, but it was long ago._

_I longed for your companionship as an angel when circumstances both prevented and dissuaded me from seeking it. Becoming human has made it impossible to continue this way. You have always been precious to me, Dean, but these past months, particularly the last few weeks, your presence and friendship have become the center of everything I am._

_I deny nothing I have written. I value every moment we share. Everything you teach me, all of the small words and touches from you, I cherish. I kept your pillow because it smells like you and there is nothing else in this world that can provide me such comfort. I want to kiss you again. I never wanted to stop._

_It is because of my feelings for you that I withdrew into myself last night. I am sorry for any hurt it may have caused you, but I needed you to know the extent of those feelings before I allowed it to continue. I can only assume you understand, as I have written about sharing a heaven with you, which is something gifted only to soul mates. For me, there is no other._

_I understand that this must be overwhelming to you. I am aware that humans do not typically love so fiercely. You did not ask for this, for an angel to fall and offer themselves to you, body and soul._

_If you want me, I am wholly yours, Dean. But I have one more request: If you do not feel the same, please do not pursue me. I know this is unlikely, but I also know I will not be able to suffer an end. Let us instead go on as we have been and spare us both._

_I was wrong when I spoke last night. You are the one that is always there to catch me when I fall. I thank you for everything. Regardless of whatever it is that we are now, I give you my undying gratitude, for it is the least that you deserve._

_Yours,_  
><em>Cas<em>

* * *

><p>Cas spent the entire night at the library table bent over Sam's copy of <em>The Two Towers<em>, reading and rereading the same words over and over again but unable to absorb their meaning. He couldn't even finish a chapter.

Cas vaguely registered Sam's presence when the taller brother greeted him and set to work in the kitchen, then made some autopilot chit-chat over breakfast and coffee when Sam joined him at the table. Sam might have mentioned something about Cas looking tired, but the fallen angel wasn't fully tuned in to the conversation.

When he heard the familiar creak of Dean's bedroom door opening and the sound of leather hitting tile, Cas closed the book and made an abrupt exit. If he gave an excuse to Sam, he couldn't remember what it was. He grabbed his trench coat off of the small coat rack that had been hung near the door and went out into the cold.

He didn't want to be in the bunker while Dean was reading his journal. He didn't want to sit there pretending to read Tolkien when a few walls separated him and Dean, but his heart was bared on the paper in Dean's hands for him to do with whatever he pleased.

So Cas walked. It was cold but not biting. The trench coat over his hoodie was enough— he'd left his peacoat in Dean's room, and he couldn't have brought himself to retrieve it if he had tried. He followed their running route, taking the long way whenever possible. The distance seemed so much further at the slower pace and without another body beside him. When he came back around to the bunker, he turned around and retraced his steps to buy more time.

He had hoped all of the walking would clear his head. It didn't. It made his legs tingle with aching pins and needles and he was sure the stinging on his toes would result in some new blisters later, but his worries only intensified with every step and every second that brought him closer to the inevitable moment when Dean would confront him and hand Cas' mutilated leather-bound heart back to him.

Talking to Dean would have been easier, but penning everything out gave Cas the valuable opportunity to know that every word he wished to say would be heard. He would not fumble his phrases and trip over his words. He wouldn't get lost in green eyes or let the shame overwhelm him and stop him before he had a chance to finish. Letting Dean read his journal allowed Cas to speak his piece with confidence, to tell Dean that this is who he was and how he felt— no omissions, no second thoughts.

His closing letter was the question that he knew he wouldn't be able to speak aloud, knowing that Dean knew everything: '_Do you still want me?_'

Up until yesterday Cas had been fairly confident he knew the answer. Then Dean kissed him. Dean kissed him and it was wonderful and now he had _hope_, and hoping was what hurt the most. Knowing he had a chance, however slim, made the likelihood of rejection so much worse.

Cas returned to the bunker and hung up his trench coat. He ignored the heavy weight of Sam's questioning eyes on him as Cas brewed some tea to warm himself up. He used Sam's mug. His own was still on Dean's nightstand.

Cas had meant to slip past and into his room without stopping to chat, but Sam wasn't having any of it.

"Any idea where Dean went?"

A splash of hot tea nearly scalded Cas' hands when he froze. "What?"

Sam looked up from his laptop. Cas could see from the rough set of Sam's face that the brother was dealing with his own brand of worry. "First you storm out of here, then Dean just nearly threw a bitch fit a few minutes ago when I asked why he had his keys, when apparently he's 'just going out for a drive.' He didn't even eat. What the hell is going on? Did something happen?"

_No._ Dean… left? A few minutes ago? That allowed more than enough time for him to read everything. If he left, then that meant…

"No, Sam. Nothing happened," he said, hearing the break in his own voice.

Cas continued towards his room even as he heard the pitying concern in the way Sam called his name. He wanted none of it.

Dean leaving cut him deep. Finding his journal sans note on top of his folded blanket only rubbed salt in the wound.

Cas paused in the doorway holding his cup of tea and stared at the journal. He had been expecting rejection, he'd willingly admit that to himself, but that didn't stop the ache in his chest or the growing sting of tears behind his eyes. He didn't think it would be so impersonal. He offered Dean everything, and Dean handed it right back without so much as a word.

He didn't close the door. He wasn't going to cry. If he wasn't going to cry, he had nothing to hide.

Cas forced his breathing to slow, tried to stop the ragged heaving of his chest as he put down his tea and crawled up onto the bed. He knew his eyes would be red. He hated the way they looked when he got like this, a bleary splatter of tinged veiny white ringing his blue irises. It was ugly.

He grabbed his pillow— _Dean's_ pillow— and stuffed his face in it, clenching his burning eyes and focusing on inhaling and exhaling, a cycle that was supposed to help calm him but really only drowned him in Dean's scent which seemed so much stronger now, an offending comfort.

Cas growled a sad thing of frustration and threw the pillow to the floor. He leaned forward and grabbed the journal. Writing in it had become cathartic. He undid the leather ties and picked up his pen, thinking that seeking solace in it now might keep the wounds from splitting open and hemorrhaging. He thumbed through to where the page had been ripped out, seeking a blank white slate to bleed black, but that wasn't what he found.

Dean's handwriting stared back at him, all capital letters in short sharp lines and stout curves. The pen fell from Cas' hand and he skimmed his fingers down the page, as if touch could take back the illusion.

The words remained.

* * *

><p><em>Cas,<em>

_Two can play at this game. If you get to take the easy way out, so do I. I don't know if it's just the way you are or if I've rubbed off too much on you, but I'll deal with it. I'm not as good with words as you are, but whatever. Neither of us are much for talking about this stuff, so I guess this will have to do. I was pissed off when I read your note. If you wanted to talk, Cas, just talk to me, but I get where you're coming from now. This works better, but I still wish I would have known last night because I thought you changed your mind. It's okay though._

_I don't know where to start. You just gave me a chunk of your life and I don't want to be a dick and tear it apart and start analyzing it. That's not what you want. You don't want my approval and you sure has hell don't need it. I'm not going to sit here and comment on every little thing because what's that going to get us? Nothing. That's not the point. You wanted me to understand you beyond what you've been able to show me, right Cas? Everything from the simple stuff in the beginning to what you wrote for me last night._

_I can't say I get it. I don't want to lie to you. I still find it hard to believe that I was lucky enough you even kissed me back last night, let alone all of what you wrote. Talk is cheap, but I know you wouldn't write it down unless you meant it. It's a lot to process so I'm sorry if I'm spinning you in circles right now._

_I'm not the kind of person that people love, Cas. Never have been. Sammy does, Bobby did, Mom did (how do you not love your four year old kid though, four year olds can't give you a reason not to love them yet), maybe Dad did a bit in his own fucked up way (thanks for bringing that up, jerk). But that's all family. I'm not going to cheapen what you feel by saying I'm not worth loving even if it's how I feel, but I will say I don't understand why. But you love me. I won't question it even though I want to shake you and scream until you realize you deserve so so so much better than me._

_You haven't terrified me. I am relieved. I don't want you to want better because I want you to want to be with me. It might take me a while to actually say it out loud, but I love you too, Cas._

_It hurt reading how uncertain you've been around me. I need you to know that yeah, I don't know exactly when it started for me either, but it's been a while. Years. Sure it started small but now I don't know what I'll do if I ever lose you again. I need you to know that when I say what I say, it's about who you are, not who you've become. I don't want you thinking that this is because you're human now and it's convenient. It's not. You're you, wings or no wings. The human thing just kinda threw us together and sped things up, I think. I felt the same way as I do now back when you were in that ring of fire and when you were insane and in purgatory and down in the crypt. This is nothing new for me. It's just become a lot more over the years._

_I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. The closest thing I've had to a real relationship was with Lisa and yeah, Cas, I'm going to be straight with you, I think maybe I might have loved her too, but people don't just love once and then it's all over for them. It doesn't work like that. We were good together but our lives weren't. Once we realized that, everything became an effort and I felt like I was poisoning the world she'd built up for her and Ben. You know the rest. I couldn't stay. Leaving hurt, but I didn't want to stay. It was better this way. They could never really know me and I could never feel at home or keep them safe. That isn't a life._

_You and me, we've got all that already— the home, the family, all of it. We've got a good thing going on. I know how I feel about you and it scares the shit out of me sometimes but I know that if anyone else mentioned hanging out in heaven together after we both kick the bucket, I'd be running for the hills. Coming from you, I don't know. It sounds like a good idea._

_To put it along the same lines that you did— you're it for me._

_I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't know how to do this. I don't know what I'm doing, Cas. I've read and reread what you wrote to me and I know in my head that yeah, that's it, that's how it feels, but those are your words, not mine. If I said any of that to you, it would sound fake. You wouldn't believe me._

_So here's mine: I love you and I want this. I want you. I almost tripped earlier last night when you said you want me with you all the time because that's what I want too. I'm leaving this for you and not 'pursuing' you because this isn't about what I want. This is about us. I don't have much to offer, but think about it. If this works for you, it sure as hell works for me._

_Sam said you went out without your coat, so I put your blanket back since you'll probably be cold. I also switched out the pillow so the one you've got there now should have a fresher 'me' smell (since you're apparently into that)._

_Also yours,_  
><em>Dean<em>

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><p>Dean managed to sneak up from the garage and down the hall with his noisy paper bag of burgers from the diner downtown without catching Sam's attention. Good. His brother had every right to be concerned, but this was none of Sam's business until he'd had a chance to sort things out with Cas beyond the realm of pen and paper.<p>

With his heart thundering in his chest, Dean stood outside Cas' bedroom door and knocked.


End file.
